Acceleration of Human Evolution, Alternatives for Blogging, Autism and Indian Ladies

If the above subject heading seems internally disconnected, imagine please what my poor brain is undergoing as I read books in these subject areas, concurrently.

It is my habit to read three or more books in various stages of completion so I have a choice to suit my frame of mind and physical circumstance.

Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending

The most intriguing of the books I am currently reading is The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Human Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. I might not have found out about this book as I did, even before it was published, were it not for Professor Harpending and I being descended from a common ancestor, Gerret Hargerinck of Nieuwenhuys, Netherlands, born in 1640. Gerret and his sons, Jan and Hendrick, emigrated to Nieuw Amsterdam, now New York City. The family changed the name a few times until it settled on ‘Harpending,’ with branches of the family spreading out to upstate New York, to Kentucky and to one or two of the northern tier states, plus Utah where my distant cousin Henry now lives. My branch was in Kentucky.

But that’s another story for another day, except that I have a standing request for Google to send me links to any new web pages containing the names Harpending and Pavellas. That’s how I found out about The 10,000 Year Explosion.

The first thing I like about the book is that it challenges current wisdom in its field and related fields. These would be, as far I can tell: human biology, evolutionary biology in humans and other living forms, anthropology, history, human genetics and possibly others.

The second thing I like about the book is that it appeals to my own brand of common sense. Other than where it necessarily uses the language of science to buttress its authors’ assertions, it is breezy and easily understood by this non-scientist.

There is already a buzz about it on the internet, most of it positive, as far as I can see, but some negative because it seems to violate some currently politically correct views on the nature of being human.

I am halfway through the book and will not discuss it further here; my purpose, as usual, is to bring something interesting to the attention of the readers of this journal. And, there is plenty enough discussion about the book available on the Internet.

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As for “Alternatives for Blogging,” this idea came to me recently from a friend who heard from someone else that Google’s Blogspot (this here one you are looking at) will soon or sometime stop hosting any archives older than six months. I wrote back to the fellow who told my friend, he did some more checking, and couldn’t verify this notion, after all. But, he did have some gripes against Blogspot regarding the terms and conditions and recommended I change to WordPress.

Before I chose Blogspot, in April 2007, I did buy WordPress2: Learn WordPress the Quick and Easy Way, by Maria Langer and Miraz Jordan. I’m not good with details, or at least am impatient, so I ultimately chose Blogspot because the format was set up for me and the hosting is free. I have since learned much about HTML and have modified my template, considerably and am disinclined to learn a new way.

I will, however, review the book and other writings of the authors to see if I might be better off learning the WordPress way, but not in a hurry.

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In December, 2007, I wrote an article, here, on the Autism Disorder Spectrum, which article I entitled Born on a Blue Day, after the book of the same name.

A friend who has an interest in the subject lent me the book Autism From Within—A Handbook, by Hilde De Clercq. My friend translated the book from Dutch into English.

I have not yet read the book in full, but I can recommend it to parents and others who feel (or know) that a family member or friend has any degree of autism. It is a very intimate account of a mother’s experience in guiding her autistic child through schools and through all manner of social circumstances where people are carelessly ignorant about, even antipathetic to, children with this condition. It is very soulful.

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Last, the book Ladies Coupé was assigned by my book discussion group. It was written by Anita Nair.

Upon reading the first several pages I became weary with the anticipation I was about to read another novel about the feelings of women. I like an action or adventure story every once in a while, and these have been few in my reading group.

I persisted, however, as I always do and soon became absorbed in the stories presented here, containing as much as wonderful poetry as polished prose.

The main character, a woman of India (as are almost all the characters) is 45, unmarried and wanting to change her life for a variety of reasons, well described throughout the book. She takes a train trip, traveling in the “Ladies Coupé,” a compartment for women unaccompanied by men. Her purpose is to learn from these women, of varying ages and circumstances, in order to make a decision about her own life.

The stories of the other womens’ lives are at least as interesting and compelling as her own, and we are treated to a look at various facets of Indian life and culture, both attractive and unattractive to this reader.

One woman’s chapter was extraordinary: Chapter 6, “Oil of Vitriol.”

This woman is educated as a chemist but is reduced to teaching chemistry at the high school where her husband is headmaster. The chemical metaphors and poetry of this woman’s thoughts are alone worth the reading of the book. An example:

Arsenic. Her name was Kalavati. With grey hair and a turmeric tinted face. Teacher of mathematics and a poisoner of minds. Reeking of garlic and with a temperament that verged on the extreme. Arsenic knew nothing of the middle path, the in-between stage. Either she was your best friend or your worst enemy. 

…[T]etrasulpur tetranide. The trickiest of the lot. Nawaz…changed his colour with the temperature of the room. Vociferous when there was a general discussion; sitter on fences when opinion was divided, and almost invisible when an argument reached its climax. While he was stable enough, he could also explode in response to any sudden friction…

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As I finish these books, others will replace them. Candidates: King Lear by Shakespeare; Working, by Studs Terkel, lent to me by a fellow writer in the Stockholm Writers Group; Rasero, by Francisco Rebolledo, sent to me by a fellow reader in the U.K. through our membership in BookCrossing; and, The Edge of Reality, by Debra Hagan Dillinger whom I met on the internet.

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All the pictures on this blog are the property of their respective owners. I don’t hold copyright on any but my own. Pictures have been collected from different public sources including websites I believe to be in public domain. If you have objection to the displaying of any image, please send email to rpavellas@gmail.com and tell me what’s not right.

Who’s your Ur-mama?

In his book The Seven Daughters of Eve, scientist-author Bryan Sykes presents “the classification of all modern Europeans into seven groups, the mitochondrial haplogroups. Each haplogroup is defined by set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome, and can be traced along a person’s maternal line to a specific prehistoric woman” (Wikipedia, reference link above). The seven “clan mothers” mentioned by Sykes each correspond to a human mitochondrial haplogroup.

Ursula: Haplogroup U;Xenia: Haplogroup X
Helena: Haplogroup H; Velda:Haplogroup V
Tara: Haplogroup T; Jasmine: Haplogroup J

And, my Ur-mother* is Katrine, corresponding to Haplogroup K, who hypothetically lived around 12,000 years ago in northern Italy, near the Austrian border. (*The prefix ‘Ur-’ is “a combining form meaning ‘earliest, original,’ used in words denoting the primal stage of a historical or cultural entity or phenomenon” according to Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)).

Please click on the image to see the detail

How do I know this? Let me explain …

I have long been interested in the genealogy of my family. Upon a recommendation, I read Sykes’s book and found his science and imaginative hypotheses fascinating. I believe there was reference in his book to places where a person’s DNA could be analyzed in order to see which ur-mother could be assigned to him or her, assuming that the person was of consistent European ancestry on his or her mother’s matrilineal side.

I decided to pay for a DNA analysis from Family Tree DNA, based in Houston, Texas, founded in March of 2000. “It is the world leader and foremost organization in the field of Genetic Genealogy that has been constantly developing the science that enables thousands of genealogists around the world to advance their families’ research. With over 100,000 DNA records, it has the largest YDNA and mtDNA databases in the world, and processes a wide array of genealogy related tests. It also provides the DNA testing for the National Geographic’s Genographic Project.” (Source).

Helen Diakakis, my maternal grandmother, whose ur-mother came from Northern Italy, although she herself was born in Astros, The Peloponnesus, Greece

I received from Houston a kit to capture some of my tissue from which my DNA could be extracted. This tissue is the epithelial lining of my cheeks. I used the two swabs provided in the kit (a precautionary redundancy) to scrape the inside of my cheeks, then inserted them into two tubes containing some preserving liquid. I mailed them back in the special envelope Family Tree DNA provided, along with the paperwork. In due course I received results that were specific for my mother’s side (mtDNA) and my father’s patrilineal side (Y-DNA). There is no way to determine one’s “Ur-father” for reasons which are beyond the scope of this blog, but are detailed in some of the links underlying the text.

My Patrilineal side up to my great-grandfather, Greek Orthodox priest Konstantinos Alexander Pavellas

Over several years, and as the science and technology advanced, I paid for additional tests on the same tissue I submitted, which was held in storage, and now have the all the information currently available for my matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors. On my father’s side, I am descended from the Y-DNA haplogroup J2, originating probably in Anatolia 5,000-12,000 years ago. My paternal line is further identified as a subclade of haplogroup J2, namely J2e (m12+), or J2b or J2e1, depending on the system of nomenclature. Click here for a video showing the migration and mutation of haplotypes over time and over the world, with special reference to haplotype J2e1.

Now that I know all this, and more not presented here, about my matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, what about all the other hundreds of ancestors not in these lines, for instance: the ancestors of my mother’s father and the ancestors of my father’s mother? When I started mentally calculating the number of all the ancestors I needed to have in order to be me (it would be more than all the people currently on Earth), my brain locked up. I put the problem to my son Alexander J. Pavellas, a mathematics guru. Here is part of his response:

Alexander J. Pavellas, math tutor at U.C. Santa Barbara, with his dad, quite a few years ago.

“Your calculation assumes that your/our lineage is a simple binary tree. What it neglects is the possible common ancestry of a given mother and father. When populations were small, inbreeding occurred frequently simply because there was not a genetically diverse population around (i.e. “My sister is the only girl in town.”) This has the effect of “pruning the family tree.” In reality, if you were to draw a graph representing your ancestry dating back in time, you would not see a continuously branching tree with more and more ancestors per generation, but lots of crisscrossing lines with lineages constantly splitting and merging. I would guess that the number of ancestors per generation would increase geometrically until it hit some critical value, at which point the total number of ancestors in a particular generation would remain relatively constant, possibly oscillating depending on more global variables such as the size of local populations, wars, plagues and whatever else might affect it.”

In the end, for me, this is all interesting but not vital to know. For some, there are questions to answer such as determining true paternal parentage, whether one has Native American or Family Cohen (Jewish) DNA and to what degree, and many others, such as relationships among persons of the same surname. Testing of other persons presumably or questionably related to oneself is necessary for some of these determinations.

Map of Human Migration. Please click on the image to see more detail (the numbers indicate thousands of year ago)

As of April 13, 2008, Family Tree DNA achieved a data base of 188,022 records, the largest DNA databases in the field of Genetic Genealogy, including: 4,747 surname projects, 74,997 unique surnames, 123,062 Y-DNA records and 64,960 mtDNA records in the database. I have volunteered to be in several study projects, one relating to my Greek DNA heritage on my paternal side. I have also given my DNA information to GenBank of the US National Institutes of Health; and to the Genographic Project of the National Geographic magazine.

I started out on this quest to satisfy my curiosity and ended up as an active participant in the quest for more and better knowledge about the human condition.

And, now, I also know who my Ur-mama is: Katrine. Nice name.

ADDENDUM

All of this information, including that provided by volunteers such as myself, will lead to more knowledge of human DNA mutations and migrations, and to the application of this knowledge to human variations in disease and immunity patterns.

As a good book about the whole human genome, readable by non-scientists, I recommend Genome by Matt Ridley. The book has 23 chapters, each featuring the most recently discovered gene on each of our 23 chromosomes.

Although Ridley doesn’t mention this particular gene, there is one in chromosome 11 that determines whether or not a person will have normal red blood cells, or will have a mutation that makes the person anemic, to a greater or lesser degree depending on whether the mutation manifests itself recessively or dominantly. I have such a mutation in chromosome 11, the result of which is called Alpha Thalassemia, a relatively benign condition. There are serious effects when one has the genetically dominant, or “beta” form, called Mediterranean Anemia or Cooley’s Anemia. This will occur in 25% of instances, on average, where both parents have the alpha form of the mutation. I didn’t know this until all five of my children were born but I was lucky to have had mates who did not carry the alpha mutation in chromosome 11. But this is a cautionary for my children to investigate the possibility in their respective matings.

Geographic Distribution of Alpha Thalassemia

A Brief History of The Human Race

This book by Michael Cook should have been written in 1950 so I could have learned to love the subject of history in my youth, as my father vainly urged me.

It provides what I had often longed for: a general framework, with big boxes for subject areas, into which I could logically put, for later intelligent retrieval, the endless streams of information we students were supposed to memorize for reasons and purposes never clear to me.

The book is organized into four major parts:

Why is History the Way It Is?

The Smaller Continents

The Eurasian Landmass

Toward One World?

From Human Evolution: A start for population genomics by S. Blair Hedges; Published in Nature 408, 652-653 (7 December 2000)“Modern humans—in the sense of people anatomically indistinguishable from us—date back a good 130,000 years, and perhaps considerably longer.” [From page 4 of the book].

I was reminded of the following video I recently saved, in that the book gives one a dynamic view of the ebb and flow of peoples, cultures and events that influenced our arrival at this point in world history.

Imperial History of the Middle East in 90 Seconds, produced by “Maps of War”

Throughout the book the author pauses briefly to ask rhetorical questions, and answers them clearly, entertainingly and usefully:

Why did history happen when it did? Why has it all been packed in the last 10,000 years?

Did humans make the only kind of of history they could?

Why did events and significant changes in human populations happen when they did? Could they have happened differently [paraphrased]?

My wish that this book should have been written in 1950 could not possibly have been fulfilled. Much of the scientific research and findings currently available to the author was not available then, especially within the sciences of human, and even animal, genetics.

But it is available now to suffering students in high school (gymnasium, here in Sweden) and college or university. It certainly is also for those whose love of history is already established.

Please click on the image for a better view