Circadian clock is about dusk and dawn, not day and night

Of particular interest for all who have sleep disorders of any sort.

Ever stood awake for all night only to suddenly feel terribly sleepy precisely at dawn? There is an explanation: the circadian clock. It used to be believed that the neurones involved in it (the superchiasmatic nuclei, SCN, of the central brain) were firing like mad at day and virtually inactive by night, at least in normal people. But it has now been found that what the SCN does in fact is to signal dusk and dawn, remaining essentially inactive for the rest of the day and night.

Source: Science Daily.
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Istanbul IMF-WB summit protests: silenced?

I have been looking in several news sites and could find nothing. Only Basque left-wing newspaper Gara makes a meaningful mention of the protests and violent repression that have shaken Istanbul as the yearly IMF and World Bank summit took place. Please, if you know anything more, let me know.

Per Gara, the city of the Bosporus has been virtually taken over by a huge police deployment, very specially at the centric area of Sisli, where the globalist financial meeting took place.

On Tuesday ago the main fights happened at the district of Beyoglu, beginning at Taksim Plaza and and continued for hours until the gases made the situation unbearable. The demonstration called there was mercilessly smashed by the police, what nevertheless did not avoid inccidents but in fact seems to be the main cause of them. A trader, Issac Kalvo, died of a heart attack in them.

Yesterday it was the centric district of Sisli the scene of the main struggles. In spite of the overwhelming police presence, demonstrators managed to block Pangalti Avenue for some time. There, a student identified as Mehmet, declared that the IMF and World Bank have sunk our country into misery, those who make deals to sell weapons that are used to kill Kurds, Alevis, Communists and that dissidence is smashed, want to come here to sell recipes to get out of the crisis.

Some masked street guerrilla groups managed to succesfully attack cash machines, bank offices and shops of multinational corporations. A different group managed to reach to the E5 highway and block it for some time.

Yesterday there were 34 people arrested, three of which in the mostly Alevi (a progressive Shia sect) and leftist neighbourhood of Gaziosmanpasa, who are being accused of membership in the illegal Revolutionary People's Liberation Party (DHKP-C) and of carrying more than twenty molotov cocktails.
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Buyers beware (specially in the USA)

Continuing with my review of the latest articles published at Rebelión, there is an interesting article by David Biello (Scientific American) and Mark Schapiro (Democracy Now!) where they denounce that the US industry has achieved in the last decade almost legal irresponsability, allowing them such criminal activities as selling lipstick with mercury and endocrine disruptors in children's toys.

This aggresive industrial policy has worked in the USA but has failed dramatically in Europe, where the lobbying efforts have got only very limited effect. Biello and Schapiro denounce that this irresponsible policy is not just bad for the US consumer but also for the industry in the mid-run, because the global trend is to protect the consumer, causing that exports are becoming inviable on public safety grounds.

When I studied in the USA in the late 80s I learned that the caveat emptor (buyer beware) policy had been reverted a century ago or so by a more active intervention of the state (FDA, now mostly inactive) but sadly it seems that a decade later this advance began being eroded in the name of "free market" and "small state".

So, friends and readers from the USA (in particular), beware!
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Honduras and Colombia: the double standards of Liberalism

Preliminary note: Liberalism as understood on planet Earth, not just in the USA, where it's often used as synonym of Social-Democracy and even Socialism. In other words: Liberalism as the paradigmatic bourgeois ideology of "free market" and "democracy".

Catalan professor, Vincenç Navarro, makes a good analysis at Rebelión of Liberal hypocrisy and double standards by comparing the cases of Honduras and Colombia. In both cases the presidents have tried to modify the legal frame in order to extend their mandates, but while in the case of Honduras many Liberals like the famous Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa have ferviently defended the coup against Zelaya on such grounds, in the case of Colombia, where human rights are a cruel joke and where the president Uribe is a well known narcotrafficant, they have not even raised a finger in protest.

Of course, he does not forget to mention historical examples of this Liberal hypocrisy, as when the Liberal Catalan and Spanish bankers financed the bloody coup of Gral. Franco or when the same kind of Liberal ideologues, like the infamous Milton Friedman, openly supported the criminal takeover of Gral. Pinochet in Chile.

He also denounces the active intervention of Colombian death squads, one of the main pillars of Uribe's fascist (ops, I mean "liberal" and "democratic" - wonder what was I thinking) power in the devastated Colombian narcostate, in the Honduran coup. Intervention that of course has not been denounced by the "liberals" like Vargas Llosa at any moment. He concludes: do you imagine what would have the liberal media said if troops of the Chávez grovernment would have arrived in Honduras to support Zelaya? Their reaction would have been hystrionic! These are examples not just of the deep incoherence of the defenders of individual freedoms but also of their double moral standards, extremely malleable according to their class interests.
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Legal neofascist patrols take Italy's streets

Interesting, yet very scary article at BBC today on the newly implemented "citizen patrols": they seem mostly to be made up of neofascists and even wear fascist-like uniform and ensigns, pride of extremely racist views and even make fascist salutations.

Just some pics so you get the idea:

A Messina patrol with khaki uniforms and (not visible) eagle ensigns, the chief or the "National Guard" and a member saluting to the cameras

When is Italy going to be kicked out of EU?
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European ancient mtDNA in sequential maps

I'm posting here five maps for all the ancient mtDNA I know of. Mostly compiled from the Ancient Eurasian DNA site, but checking the references when I thought necessary. Two of the maps have been posted here before.

Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic:

Already commented here.

Updated (Oct 8): a likely H individual from Villabruna (Trentino-South Tirol, Italy) from Di Benedetto 2000 belongs also to this period (c. 14,000 BP) and is also an important counterpoint to the apparent U dominance of Central Europe, somehow ratifying my idea of H being common throught the south of the continent already in this period.


Neolithic and early Chalcolithic (up to c. 3000 BCE):

Already commented here.


Late Chalcolithic and Bronze (c. 2800-1000 BCE):

Note on Germany: the Eulau (Saxony-Anhalt) and Liechtenstein (Lower Saxony) sites are not too distant geographically but, in time, they are at the extremes of the temporal scope of this map, with Eulau belonging to Corded Ware (c. 2600 BCE) and Liechtenstein Cave to Urnfield culture (c. 1000 BCE). This may be an important reason behind the quite radical differences in the mtDNA pools, though I fail to understand well the processes that might have been involved; after all both were Indoeuropean cultures, right?

Nevertheless, while Corded Ware would seem to express influences from the East (Poland and beyond), Urnfields belongs rather to the West, being its core area at the Rhine. Why would this make a difference? I am not sure but I have read that in the late Bell Beaker there may have been a real demic replacement in the Rhine area (from the Austrian-Czech area?). This might have allowed for founder effects that later spread with Urnfield culture maybe. Just a tentative conjecture anyhow.

Another possibility could be the older influence of Megalithism and "collective burial" (clannic burial probably) cultural package directly in that region (but not in East Germany).

Note on Basques: the three Basque samples of Izagirre & De la Rúa for this period are shown as two: I have merged the two samples of Biscay but shown as distinct the one from Navarre (Longar).


Antique and early Medieval (c. 600 BCE-800 CE):


Note: map updated (Oct 6th) in order to include the Iron Age Iberian data of Sampietro 2005.

Notice how Britain and Denmark already show a high apportions of H, as is the case of Italy (and SE Romania too in the previous map). While this says nothing directly on the previous situation, it may suggest that either (1) H was relatively high in southern Europe (besides Iberia) already in Paleolithic times and that (2) H spread (partly?) with Megalithism through the Atlantic. Still conjectural anyhow.

Take note also that one of the Italian samples is attributed to Luke the Evangelist (hence presumably of Syrian origin, haplogroup H2a2).


Late Medieval (c. 890-1300 CE):

Most noticeable is maybe the still relevant presence of N1a (2/27) in Medieval Hungary, haplogroup also found in the Danubian Neolithic that originated there. This really suggests that, in spite of its apparent numerical decline towards the present, European N1a can be rather safely considered of Middle Danubian origin. Haplogroup I, while not a direct descendant, is a close cousin of N1a and may have also coalesced in Central Europe.

The small Italian sample in this map belongs to Francesco Petrarca (J) and a woman buried in the same tomb (H).
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Post-glacial colonization created a "Celtic fringe" among small mammals too

It's not just humans, other mammals, who have not been affected by Neolithic or the Kurgan invasions as such, also show that pattern of genetic specificity at the edges of Great Britain. The animals (voles and shrews) show two unrelated clades, one of them more closely related to the continent, which arrived in a second phase, pushing the pioneering clades into forming a "Celtic fringe" of sorts at the periphery of the island.

Source: Jeremy B. Searle et al. The Celtic fringe of Britain: insights from small mammal phylogeography. PNAS 2009 (freely available, early publication).
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The IgNobel yearly fun

Always worth a good laugh, even if some of the winners actually researched truly interesting, albeit bizarre things.

While the winner that seems has caught the media attention has been a group of Chicago people who have developed the apparently absurd bra-gas mask (not just one but two!), I find that there are others more interesting and also funnier:

The IgNobel of Veterinary Medicine went to a couple of British researchers who demonstrated that named cows produce more milk. Love pays off and we all love that fact, right?

The Peace IgNobel was won by a Swiss team who researched what is better: to be hit on the head with an empty or full bottle of beer. Better to dodge it, right? Anyhow, according to an old friend and namesake of mine the best strategy is to break the bottle at the bar and put the remaining pointy half-bottle by the neck of your opponent, who will quickly admit defeat. If you don't have a beer bottle at hand, then maybe grab a stool and wave it over the opponent's head wildy (similar effect probably). Also, another self-defense trick is to use your home keys as improvised pointy knuckles and hit right to the eyes, though this applies more for an empty street than a crowded tavern. But well, my brawler friends are not IgNobel winners, so guess I'm just ranting.

The Medicine IgNobel was indeed well deserved: a Californian, Donald L. Unger, researched a possible cause of arthritis by cracking his left hand knuckles systematically every day for 60 years, while keeping his right hand untouched. Quite admirable sense of self-discipline, really!

The Physics IgNobel is quite weird too: a team of the University of Texas got it for determining why pregnant women do not tip over. Wonder why, really.

But the best is maybe the Chemistry prize that went to a team of Mexico University for creating diamonds out of nothing less than the national liquor: tequila! Diamonds may be forever but they are not anymore what they used to be, that's pretty clear.

For the rest, read the source: BBC.
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Paleolithic tools in Japan from 120,000 years ago

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Most fascinating discovery the one that Mundo Neandertal mentions today: lithic tools have been found in Japan dating (by stratigraphy) to 127-110,000 years ago. The information I could read so far is very limited (metions sharp lithic tools, not the typical Mosuterian or Acheulean biface) but it may suggest that our kin were already in Asia as early as that date.

Of course, the tools could have been made by some other Homo species, like Homo erectus but the dates are in concordance with the earliest known presence of our species in West Asia (dated arguably to maybe as early as 130,000 BP) and maybe South Asia too, where the first bladelets appear c. 105,000 BP. Even if not conclusive as of yet, the finding seems to add evidence to support an early out of Africa migration at the time of the Abbassia Pluvial, when the Sahara was green and transitable.


Update (Sep 11): I found a half-decent article from the blog Heritage of Japan that even includes a picture of some of the 20 artifacts. Most interestingly the artifacts have been re-dated to c. 70 Ka ago, a quite reasonable date for the arrival of the very first H. sapiens to the area. They are clearly  not Acheulean (the technology of H. erectus) and could well belong to the flake industry tradition of our kin in Eastern Eurasia.

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The Neolithic aDNA map of Europe

Voilá:


Based on: Izagirre & De la Rúa 1999 (Basque Country by the Upper Ebro, huge sample), Di Benedetto 2000 (Catalonia), Chandler 2005 (Portugal), Haak 2005 (Neolithic Central Europe), Sampietro 2007 (Italy), Bramanti 2009 (Neolithic "hunter-gatherers" of mainland Northern Europe) and Malström 2009 (Funnelbeaker and Pitted Ware from Sweden). But I mostly used the Ancient Eurasian DNA site for the references.

For comparison, see my previous post and map, on Paleolithic aDNA. I tried to use the same color coding.

Notes:

• Other means N1a in Central Europe, T+X (sic) in the Basque Country and I1 and W1 (one each) in Catalonia.
• T is T2 where tested downstream, but in some cases this is not determined.
• U* is U4 in Catalonia and Götland, U3 in SW Germany. Not determined in the other cases. In the Basque Country it should be U5 or U8a attending to modern clades and in Portugal could well be U6 for the same reason.

Interpretation:

It is quite hard to deal with, as we have huge blanks, specially in the East and SE. It would seem that Danubian Neolithic (LBK) meant a "Mediterraneization" of Central Europe. The new lineages nevertheless should have been picked up in the Balcans or Middle Danube but we have very limited data for that area. What we do have though (Austria, Hungary, North Italy) is consistent with such idea: 2 H, 1 T, 1 N1a (or 1 H, 1 N1a if you prefer to skip Italy).

It must be said that the importance of the oddball N1a seems somewhat hyped, as most of the cases appear in a small and then rather marginal area of East Germany that just happens to have been oversampled. If we exclude that district, the LBK mtDNA pool has only one N1a case, with T2 (4), H (3) and K (2) being the dominant lineages instead.

A counterpoint is Iberia, where Neolithic data is abundant:

In Portugal, continuity is pretty obvious: H, U5 and U* (U6?) persist at similar apportions as before and the main change is the loss of some "other" lineages and incorporation of novel V ones.

The large Basque sample does not belong to the archetypical mountain Basques but to the populations of the Ebro Valley, where the anthropometric data shows a clear input of "gracile mediterranean" types upon Neolithic arrival. It has nevertheless loads of H (c. 40%), suggestive of a good deal of continuity with the pre-Neolithic populations, if these were similar to the known Portuguese ones. The presence of U in large amounts is also suggestive of continuity and should be U5 and possibly U8a. K, J and that T+X "other" groups (totalling c. 40% too) look of Neolithic arrival, though the place of coalescence of K and T2 has not yet been determined safely.

A similar case seems to be that of Catalonia, though here I miss the mtDNA K, so over-abundant in the Basque case.

Review by lineages:

Haplogroup U:

• U5 - Clearly Paleolithic, once dominant in Central Europe and maybe other regions of the north but also frequent elsewhere. Today still somewhat common but specially in NE Europe.
• U4 - Also spotted among Central European hunter-gatherers. Today more or less like U5.
• K (derived from U8) - First seen in Neolithic Basque Country (lots!) and Central Europe (proportionally also very important), as well as Swedish Pitted Ware (regressed foragers of Chalcolithic Age) and Alpine Italy (Ötzi). Today is widespread at low amounts with highest frequency around the Alps, Bulgaria, Kurdistan and Georgia.
• Other U - Found in Swabia, Portugal and Morocco in the Paleolithic/Epipaleolithic. In the last two cases it could be U6 (today somewhat common in North Africa and Iberia). U3 first spotted in Neolithic Baden-Würtemberg (today most commonly found in Bulgaria, the Upper Danub and Britain maybe).

Haplogroup R0:

• HV - Found in Gravettian Italy and maybe other locations. Rare now in Europe but somewhat common in West Asia.
• H - First spotted without doubts in pre-Neolithic Portugal and Morocco, though it could have been common in Paleolithic southern Europe. Expanded to the North since Neolithic, it seems. Today widespread in Europe but most frequent in the Atlantic coasts and SW, as well as Albania, South Italy, Denmark and Norway.
• V - First detected in Paleolithic Morocco, in Europe not until Neolithic (Portugal, Central and North Europe). Today most common among Saami (Lapps), sub-Pyrenean areas and parts of North Africa. Also North Italy, Finland and at lower frequencies almost ubiquitous.

Haplogroup JT:

• JT - First spotted in Paleolithic Morocco. Today JT(xJ,T) is rare and mostly seen in North Africa and Italy.
• J - First found in Neolithic Basque Country, Catalonia East Germany and Sweden. Today widespread at low frequencies, somewhat higher in Northern Germany. Quite frequent in West Asia. Used to be the archetypal "Neolithic mtDNA marker".
• T - First detected in Neolithic Central and Northern Europe, as well as North Italy and Catalonia. Rather dominant in Neolithic Rhine area (40%) and Alpine Italy (50%). Seems all T2. Today variedly common, maybe most frequent in North Italy, Georgia and some Eastern European locations.

Haplogroup N1:

• N1 - Found in Gravettian Italy. Not found as such anymore, I believe.
• N1a - First spotted in Neolithic Central Europe, being dominant in East Germany (35%) and East Hungary (1/1). Apart of one case in Rhineland, not seen elsewhere. Today very rare.
• I - First found in Neolithic Catalonia (I1). Today variedly common... or not, at low frequencies anyhow.

Haplogroup N2:

• W - First detected in Neolithic Catalonia too. Today variedly common, specially in the Mediterranean and NE Europe. More frequent in West Asia and even India (where its cousin N2a is also found) and for me a quite clear "Neolithic marker" too.

Haplogroup X: not detected in aDNA up to Neolithic. The Basque Neolithic sample of Izagirre mentions 3 "T+X" but considering what is found elsewhere in Europe at the time, it's probably all T. Today mostly West Asian (X2), North African (X1) and Native American (X2).

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Updated (Oct. 5):

1. Corrected the legend to show haplogroup K.
2. Added Ötzi's K lineage to the series of Alpine Italy, as it's within that timeframe.

Please notice that the dates of the samples vary from c. 5500 to 3000 BCE. The later samples would be considered Chalcolithic by most prehistorians but the Baltic groups with high U were all (regressive?) hunter-gatherers. The dividing line between the various periods is not something straight but I find better anyhow that the maps follow consistent chronological timeframes. In this case, the map covers the period between Neolithic arrival and that of consolidation of Kurgan immigrants (Indoeuropeans), at the early/middle 3rd milennium (Globular Amphora and Corded Ware), event that may well split European Late Prehistory in two.
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Map of Paleolithic mtDNA in Europe

This seems to be what we know as of now of pre-Neolithic European mtDNA:

I just needed to create this map after the sometimes heated discussions at Dienekes' blog (and probably other places) after the publication of Bramanti 2009 (paywall but the supplementary material is freely available) and the even more confusing Malmstöm 2009, which in fact studies Neolithic hunter-gatherers rather than true Paleolithic samples.

I have included all hunter-gatherer samples from Bramanti's work except those of Funnelbeaker culture, which do in fact belong to the Neolithic period, even if they were (regressed?, subneolithic?) hunter-gatherers and (update) another case from NE Poland that would seem to belong to the same period (3rd milennium) and cultural area.

It's worth noticing that the samples in fact belong to various different periods anyhow: middle Upper Paleolithic in the case of Paglicci (Italy) and Sunghir (central Russia), late Upper Paleolithic in the case of Taforalt (Morocco) and a couple of the Swabian samples (the U* ones), and Epipaleolithic ("Mesolithic") in the rest.

The key issue is the lack of mtDNA H, the most common European lineage nowadays, in most or even maybe all the samples of Central/Northern/Eastern Europe, clearly dominated by U5 instead. On the other hand, H has been detected in dominant ammounts in pre-Neolithic Portugal and Morocco and its precursor, HV, was determined in the case of Gravettian age Italy.

I will deal with Neolithic aDNA later on but the case is that, while it begins to show up some H in Central and Northern Europe, it does not yet have it in the amounts that is found nowadays, while instead carries high amounts of mtDNA that is now pretty much rare (the most striking case is N1a, at least 12% among Danubian Neolithics but extremely rare today).

Notes:
- The other category includes a case determined to be N1 in Paglicci (Italy). It could be anything "exotic" in Portugal and Morocco.
- U(xU5) is determined to be U4 in the case of East Germany and Lithuania. It seems to be U6 in Morocco.

Sources:
- Ancient Eurasian DNA (reference site, thanks to PConroy for indicating this site)
- Caramelli 2003 and 2005
- Chandler 2005
- Kèfi 2005
- Bramanti 2009

Update (Oct 8th): a likely H individual from Di Benedetto 2000 (Villabruna, Trentino-South Tirol, c. 14,000 BP) was missing from this map. Somehow this was the piece that the puzzle needed so much to confirm widespread presence of H not just in Portugal but elsewhere in Southern Europe in the Paleolithic. So it's an important sample even if it only includes one individual.
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Epipaleolithic wooden dock found in southern England

Very interesting, unique and intriguing archaeological discovery this one that I found at Archaeology in Europe: the remains of a large wooden structure (maybe a dock), a log boat and lots of other artefacts (flint tools, strings, hazelnuts, charcoal...) have been discovered underwater at the Isle of Wight, in southern England. They date from the Epipaleolithic (also called sometimes "Mesolithic") period, before farming or pottery arrived to the area.

More details at ThisIsHapmshire.net.
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Defending centenary beeches against the high speed train

A group of people has climbed to three centenary beech trees at Ordizia in a nonviolent attempt to defend nature against that idiotic project of the Basque high speed train. They have declared they have no intention whatsoever to get down the trees. The information doesn't have much more detail as of yet.

Source: Gara.
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Hoduras: the usurper decrees the state of siege

Not sure if such term exists in English but it does in Spanish: it is the most extreme case of emergency and, as it name suggests, it implies that the town (or in this case the whole country) is under siege and hence all normal liberties are severely limited.

The decree implies that for the next 45 days, freedom of speech and movement will be extremely restricted, public gatherings are totally forbidden as well. The decree also commands the forcible evacuation of any public building occupied by demonstrators, closure of media "that offend human dignity, public servants or breach the law" and the arbitrary arrest of "suspect" people.

The decree was approved on September 22nd, just after the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya returned from his forced exile, but has only been published today and publicly broadcast in all TV and radio networks.

Zelaya in turn has protested the measure as "a barbarity" and has appealed to Parliament to suspend it and reach out to his offer of dialogue. He has also made an appeal for a pacific demonstration lasting for the next 24 hours.

Source: Gara.
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Spanking children makes them dumb

That is the conclusion of a study (paywall) by US researchers: that regular spanking is extremely altering and causes traumatic post-stress disorder reducing the young brain's ability to cope and develop normally.

The good news is that, as the practice of corporal punishment is steadily decreasing worldwide, the intelligence of the new generations is improving overall. In fact, it may be an important factor in the Flynn effect.

Source: Science Daily.
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Antifascist memorial acts forbidden

The dynamics of re-fascistation in this little Basque Country are reaching unimagined levels: yesterday the Spanish political tribunal (Audiencia Nacional) declared illegal all acts by the perfectly legal association Ahaztuak ("the forgotten ones") that is dedicated to restore the memory of those fallen fighting against fascism or impunely murdered by it. Gudari Eguna (the day of the fighter) was estabilished for this reason in September 26th, to remember the Basque anti-fascist fighters, known as gudariak (fighters or warriors).

This date is also used by ETA supporters to commemorate those militants fallen or imprisoned but the two activities are unrelated.

Yesterday though some of the many demonstrations held by Ahaztuak throughout the country found themselves with police harassment because the Neoinquisitor Eloy Velasco has arbitrarily decided they were illegal. Ahaztuak has wowed to appeal the resolution but this year's acts have found themselves banned anyhow. They have also demanded from the authorities to forbid the fascist demonstration scheduled for the upcoming November 11th in Pamplona.

There is a traditional hymn usually sang in this occasion:

Eusko Gudariak gara
Euskadi askatzeko,
gerturik daukagu odola
bere aldez emateko.

Irrintzi bat entzun da
mendi tontorrean
goazen gudari danok
Ikurriñan atzean.

Faxistak datoz eta
Euskadi da altxatzen.
goazen gudari danok
gure aberria askatzen.

Translated:

We are the Basque fighters,
for the freedom of the Basque Country,
the blood we have ready
to be given for it.

A war cry is heard
on top of the mountain,
let's go all the fighters
after our flag.

Because the fascists are coming
the Basque Country rises up,
let's go all fighters
to liberate our fatherland.

The song was proposed in 1983 to become that of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Western Basque Country) but a different one was chosen instead.

Translation notes:
- Irrintzi (from irri=laughter) is the traditional high pitched cry of Basques, somewhat similar to that of Berber women but expressed with the throat only, not using the tongue, it is more often associated with joy and celebration but can also have that connotation of war cry and I think it has that meaning here.
- Ikurriña (from ikur=sign, ensign) is a proper name (a neologism by Sabino Arana) for the Basque flag, other flags are not called that way (bandera instead, from Spanish), so "our flag" is a logical translation.
- Aberri is another neologism by Sabino Arana that means fatherland, even if the etymology is maybe more based on Sumerian (aba=father, cow) than on real Basque. The root aba- does appear in a couple of Basque words, namely apaiz (priest, surely from the same root as abbot and surely of West Asian origins itself but a recent loanword from Romance in any case) and abere (cattle, domestic animal), from which aberatz (wealth). This one is, in my opinion, a truly old West Asian loanword that surely comes from Neolithic times.
- Gudari is arguably also a neologism, from guda, war but only in the sense of legitimate war or popular upsrising, in particular for the Basque struggle for freedom. For regular wars, the Romance loanword gerra is the correct one. The professional suffix -ari is similar to that one found in other languages (like English -er, Spanish -ero/-era, etc.) but in Basque ari is also an auxiliar verb meaning activity. The etymology of guda is not known but to me it reminds of bagauda, which is said to be a Celtic word (??) but in Basque could well mean emphatically (ba-) "we have" [rights or whatever]. It also reminds me of that typical cry of "gora gu ta gutarrak!": up with us and ours [our people]!

News source: Gara.
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India: two ancestral populations and many founder effects

There's a new seemingly important paper around but it is behind a paywall so I can only make a shallow comment: David Reich, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Nick Patterson, Alkes L. Price & Lalji Singh, Reconstructing Indian population history. Nature, 2009.

A divulgative review can be read at Science Daily.

Apparently the research has found or confirmed two important elements in the Indian genetic background:

1. That there were two ancestral populations in the subcontinent: a northern one (ANI), not very different from Western Eurasians and a southern one (ASI) totally unique to India and whose only pure remainder are the Andamanese. Otherwise both distinct ancestral populations are nowadays found mixed at various apportions.

2. That tribes and castes are really not that different, with castes seemingly being formed out of recycled ancient tribes. This means that there are many tribal/caste founder effects that make each of these groups rather unique and inbred, with likely relevant health consequences like those found among other similarly isolated populations, such as Jews or Finns.

Nothing too new, because I do have the feeling that this was vaguely known but never really established in such categorical terms. For example, in some previous global studies South Asians have often appeared as a mixture of two components: one the same as West Eurasians and another unique of them. Even the anthropometrists of old used to talk of "Caucasoid" and "Australoid" (or sometimes "Veddoid") Indians, even if we know now that the use of the term "Australoid" in the past was all but clarifying, mostly meaning anything Eurasian that is not specifically Western or Eastern.

For me, this confirmation of the existence of two distinct ancestral populations, suggests that they formed in the early period of Eurasian spread of humankind, before what we conventionally call now "races" formed. As West Eurasia was colonized since c. 50,000 BP, that provides a most recent time limit for such population divergence, because it must have happened before, probably quite a bit of time before, some of the ANI peoples migrated to West Asia, North Africa and Europe. The "Indian remix" must then have happened after this westward migration.
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Moon has water!

Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan has found that the Lunar dust has a small apportion of water moisture, about 0.1%. Apollo project samples of Lunar dust were known to have that tiny amount of water but it was uncertain until now whether the moisture had formed in the journey to Earth or was genuine.

This finding may make the possibility of estabilishing a scientific Lunar base more feasible, as you could in principle extract the water from the soil and use it as such water, or electrolyse it into oxygen, even more necessary for human life, or even use the water molecular components, oxygen and hydrogen as portable fuel for rockets or whatever.

It is also possible that some craters, specially towards the poles, could hold significative amounts of water ice, as suggested by the strong hydrogen signal detected by NASA's Lunar Prospector towards the poles.

Source: BBC. See also this article at SD, more detailed in some aspects.
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Honduras: usurper desperate, attacks the people

The final and much awaited return of President Zelaya to Tegucigalpa has indeed caused an increase of the popular revolt, with thousands defying the curfew to support their legitimate President at the Brazilian embassy. The usurpers can probably feel by now the end of their illegal and widely delegitimized (inside and outside) regime coming to an end and are going even more violent.

The armed forces bloodily quelled the popular demonstration at the Brailian embassy, with at least 20 injured and strong rumors of several killed and have also gone wild in the poor neighbourhoods of the capital, throwing tear gas inside homes with newborns inside and who knows what (the information is not yet too precise).

According to journalist Tim Russo, this doesn't look good; repression will only make people even angrier with Micheletti and the National Police.

The coupist regime has cut water and electricity to the Brazilian embassy, where at least some 20 supporters of Zelaya have entered, and seems to be preparing a long siege. What is not clear is if they will themselves withstand the siege that the Honduran people has estabilished on them.

I foresee a coup against the coup very soon.

Sources: Gara, BBC.
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The Ceylon death camps

280,000 Tamils (men, women, children...) are still imprisoned in the so-called "refugee camps" of Sri Lanka. The situation has been these days denounced as awful, death threatening and secretive. Humanitarian organizations working in the camps are forbidden to speak of what happens there but the facts are anyhow getting to be known in those so-called "refugee camps" that are in fact mass open air prisons.

It is not just that the people can't freely return to their homes after many months that the war is over, or that the nutritional needs of children are not been met at all, but the fact that most of such camps are plainly flooded and children and adults alike are forced to live in water and side by side to their own excrements. People are dying right now on contagious diseases that they would probably never catch outside.

While the Sinhalese government has promised to liberate the refugees after "screening", in all these months only a handful of elderly or incapacitated have been in fact liberated, while instead some 10,000 have been sent to secret prisons. And it would seem that unless a clamor rises against this fascist and racist treatment of the people, the Sinhalese government won't do anything but just let those many thousand Tamils die.

I'd suggest not buying tea from Ceylon to begin with, as that is their main export.

On a side note, the UN has declined to provide the total figure of deaths in the war in order "to avoid a diplomatic conflict", what is unprecedented, but it is known that some 20,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed by government forces in the last month of the war, 10,000 of them in a single day: May 17th.

Source: Gara.
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