We have identified a Y-chromosomal lineage with several unusual features. It was found in 16 populations throughout a large region of Asia, stretching from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea, and was present at high frequency: ~8% of the men in this region carry it, and it thus makes up ~0.5% of the world total. The pattern of variation within the lineage suggested that it originated in Mongolia ~1,000 years ago. Such a rapid spread cannot have occurred by chance; it must have been a result of selection. The lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, and we therefore propose that it has spread by a novel form of social selection resulting from their behavior.

{ National Institutes of Health }

An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today. […]

To have such a startling impact on a population required a special set of circumstances, all of which are met by Genghis Khan and his male relatives, the authors note in the study.

[Genghis Khan lived from 1162-1227 and raped and pillaged from Mongolia to the gates of Vienna. Once he captured a village or town, he would essentially kill all the men and rape the women.]

The Y-chromosome is passed on as a chunk of DNA from father to son, basically unchanged through generations except for random mutations.

These random mutations, which happen naturally and are usually harmless, are called markers. Once the markers have been identified, geneticists can go back in time and trace them to the point at which they first occurred, defining a unique lineage of descent.

In this particular instance, the lineage originated 1,000 years ago. The authors aren’t saying that the genetic mutations defining the lineage originated with Khan, who was born around 1162; they are more likely to have been passed on to him by a great great grandfather.

[…]

The connection to Genghis Khan will never be a certainty unless his grave is found and his DNA could be extracted.

{ National Geographic | Continue reading | Audio: Radio Lab, Genghis Khan Episode }

The location of the tomb of Genghis Khan has been the object of much speculation and research. The site remains undiscovered. […] According to one legend, the funeral escort killed anyone and anything that crossed their path, in order to conceal where he was finally buried. After the tomb was completed, the slaves who built it were massacred, and then the soldiers who killed them were also killed.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Florida’s largest gun dealer bans gun rentals after suicides

Your top three friends probably received 50% of your calls, regardless of who they are at a given time.

While gum-chewing may be associated with excessive gas, increased hunger and migraine in adolescents, recent studies have also linked it with increased cognitive function.

Childless couples have happier marriages, study reveals

A research group developed a system to remove unpleasant memories of selected patients, by using electroshock. The result has been published in Nature Neuroscience and could open the door to a new series of treatments.

Caffeine pill ‘could boost memory.’ More: Researchers find caffeine enhances memory.

First bitcoin ATM to debut in NYC You put in US dollars and receive bitcoins back on your phone.

High cost of living, fewer part-time jobs drive artists out of New York.

Some experts are concerned that Russia might be returning to the Soviet-era days when dissidents were locked away in psychiatric institutions for their political views.

Alfred Hitchcock’s unseen Holocaust documentary to be restored

“These Facebook and Instagram postings are sometimes our most reliable evidence and they become our most reliable informants in identifying who’s in the gang,” says Manhattan District Attorney.

Museum and gallery curators reopen the cabinet of curiosities concept

“Synapse the Electronic Magazine,” all issues, as PDFs

This chapter might have been called “Introduction,” but nobody reads the introduction, and we wanted you to read this. We feel safe admitting this here, in the footnote, because nobody reads footnotes either.

{ via Other Sociologist }

Oxytocin and vasopressin are neuro-modulators that, like dopamine, are also produced by the hypothalamus and are stored in the pituitary gland for later release into the blood. These seem to have a role in forming bonds and feelings of attachment to others, particularly in romantic love, and high levels of these are released into the blood stream following orgasm in both men and women. Interestingly, they are also released during child-birth and breast feeding, again showing an interesting link the biology of romantic and maternal love. […]

Sexual arousal and romantic love also appear to be coupled with de-activation of regions of the frontal cortex (the front of the brain), which is largely involved in judgement, and this might explain why individuals might engage in sexual activity that they later regret

{ Anti Sense Science | Continue reading }

related { Lady Flashing — HO Scale Train Model Frigure }

Woman caught sneaking into U.S. in suitcase

Man arrested after Google+ sends automated invitation to ex with restraining order.

A woman tried to sue her lawyers for negligence because they failed to warn her that finalizing her divorce proceedings would end her marriage.

This study solicited the views of 20 young males who exposed their underwear by wearing saggy pants.

Sometime between 360 and 390 million years ago, a group of fishes made the move to life on land. How Do you move a leg that was once a fin?

Postal Experiments

What are the most common months for birthdays?

Facial hair trends from 1842 to 1972

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + … = - 1/12

Spider-Man balloon, inflated.

{ How To Make Your Face (Digitally) Unforgettable | NPR | MIT | PDF }

Twitter co-creator whose real name is actually Biz Stone has a new project called “Jelly.” No one knows what it is, other than an epicenter of vagaries and tech intrigue. […] In a blog post on its mystery Tumblr, Jelly announced its latest financials backers:

Jack Dorsey, Co-founder and CEO of Square
Bono, Musician and Activist
Al Gore, Politician, Philanthropist, Nobel Laureate
Greg Yaitanes, Emmy Winning Director
Roya Mahboob, Afghan Entrepreneur and Businesswoman

[…]

By Jelly’s own admissions, the “product” is still in “early prototyping,” so these celeb investors aren’t even completely sure what they’re investing in. Whatever it is, it will have something to do with “mobile devices [taking] an increasingly central role in our lives,” since “humanity has grown more connected than ever,” and “herein lies massive opportunity.”

{ ValleyVag | Continue reading }

“Jelly” has been a closely guarded secret. […] Now, it has revealed itself. It’s a way to ask your friends questions.

Watch the video and be not amazed. Watch as, for the first time ever, a dude takes a picture of a tree in the woods and sends it to someone else because he doesn’t know what he’s looking at—Yahoo! Answers for the bourgeoisie.

Have you ever posted on Facebook, asking if anyone knows a good barber? Or tweeted to your followers asking if “House of Cards” is any good? That’s Jelly—a search engine that uses your friends—only more convoluted than ever before. […]

Jelly says “it’s not hard to imagine that the true promise of a connected society is people helping each other.” This truly is a revolution in engorged, cloying, dumbstruck rhetoric, a true disruption of horse shit. With Jelly, “you can crop, reframe, zoom, and draw on your images to get more specific”—you can also do that with countless other apps. But that doesn’t matter—this is a vanity project, remember. It’s an opportunity for Biz Stone to Vimeopine on the nature of human knowledge, interconnectedness, and exotic flora. It’s an app for the sake of apps—a software Fabergé egg.

{ ValleyWag | Continue reading }

Three computer scientists at Stony Brook University in New York think they found some rules through a computer program that might predict which books will be successful. The algorithm had as much as 84 percent accuracy when applied to already published manuscripts.

If so, it comes much too late for the more than 20 book editors who turned down J.K. Rowling’s first manuscript about a boy wizard named Harry Potter.

They said it is the first study to correlate between a book’s stylistic elements and its popularity and critical acclaim.

{ Inside Science | Continue reading }

At the beginning, Walter pursues synthesis using pseudoephedrine. This is used in the real world, as well as in Breaking Bad by many meth cooks. However, by applying his knowledge of chemistry, his experimental abilities, and a half-way professional lab set-up, Walter is able to achieve much better results.

The base substance, pseudoephedrine is a plant-based phenyl ethylamine alkaloid and is used commercially in treatments for nasal and sinus congestion and can be extracted from these treatments. Due to the restrictions on sale, an extensive procurement network is required, which generally means involving a large number of drug addicts, in order to secure the necessary quantities. As the drug addicts can really only acquire the smallest of quantities each time by this “smurfing”, which involves either getting prescriptions for it or stealing it, the availability of this base substance is always a critical factor.

{ Chemistry Views | Continue reading }

{ Magyar was immersed in a long-running techno-art project called Stainless, creating high-resolution images of speeding subway trains and their passengers, using sophisticated software he created and hardware that he retrofitted himself. | full story }

Woman pulls gun from genitals during sex act after aliens argument upsets her [more]

University study looks at the impact of doing exercise on women’s breasts

App Turns Smartphone Into Virtual Cane for the Blind

The 14-nanometer silicon chips that are now heading to mobile phones and elsewhere may eventually reach 7nm or even 5nm, but that may be it. Moore’s Law created a stable era for technology, and now that era is nearing its end.

That’s particularly useful in Japan and South Korea where streets are rarely numbered in chronological order but in other ways such as the order in which they were constructed. How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View

How to make your own digital currency

One night in 1971, files were stolen from an F.B.I. office near Philadelphia. They proved that the bureau was spying on thousands of Americans. The case was unsolved, until now. [NY Times]

Boxes filled with bananas and cocaine were delivered to five Berlin supermarkets in what police on Tuesday called a “logistical error” by drug smugglers.

Media Company Looking For Ways To Get Rid Of Veteran 24-Year-Old Employee

@GSElevator Shopping Book Proposal

Vanished New York from 2001 to 2013

Ballet Dancers doing splits in an MRI scanner [hip study]

Pointless Diagrams

Say NO to Crack, Say YES! to Roller Skating

$34,000 worth of LOSING LOTTERY TICKETS! - $500

It’s so cold

-Polar bear is kept inside at zoo
-Some states colder than Antarctica

{ AP | Continue reading }

A fugitive prisoner turned himself in because it’s too cold outside.

{ NY Post | Continue reading }

{ The Secret World of Men Who Dress Like Dolls }

Childhood amnesia kicks in around age 7

You could travel the world with an infant aged under 3 and it’s almost guaranteed that when they get older they won’t remember a single boat trip, plane ride or sunset. This is a phenomenon known as childhood or infantile amnesia, that means most of us lose all our earliest autobiographical memories. It’s a psychological conundrum because when they are 3 or younger, kids are able to discuss autobiographical events from their past. So it’s not that memories from before age 3 never existed, it’s that they are subsequently forgotten. […]

Bauer and Larkina uncovered a paradox - at ages 5 to 7, the children remembered over 60 per cent of the events they’d chatted about at age 3. […] In contrast, children aged 8 and 9 recalled fewer than 40 per cent of the events they’d discussed at age 3, but those memories they did recall were more adult-like in their content.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

{ The photo features a real soldier and his girlfriend, according to a San Diego TV station, and the ad is inspired by a real married couple, according to the website of SnoreStop, the company using the ad. […] The ad is selling a throat spray that is supposed to help people stop snoring and thus keep them “together.” | Military Times | Continue reading }

{ Kanye West’s Attorneys File Suit Over ‘Coinye West’ }

New Hampshire girl gets tongue stuck to a flag pole after licking it during a blizzard.

Tighter Access To U.S. Deaths List Has Researchers Grim.

They approached fellow college students of another gender and asked one of three questions: (a) “Would you go out with me tonight?” (b) “Would you come over to my apartment tonight?” or (c) “Would you go to bed with me tonight?”

Divorced individuals face complex situations when they have children with different ex-partners, or even more, when their new partners have children of their own. The physics of custody.

Facial Recognition for the People in Your Pupils / Zooming in on the subject’s eye reveals hidden bystanders.

A pill that lets adults learn perfect pitch as easily as kids.

How about a side of giraffe leg? Surprising discoveries result from an excavation site in the buried city of Pompeii.

This machine is the first step toward a 3-D food printer.

In the U.S., road crews scatter about 137 pounds of salt per person annually to melt ice. Where does it go after that?

Zynga Helps Build Bitcoin Buzz But Don’t Get Carried Away – Yet. + How to Trade Bitcoin (And If You Should)

Financial Times readers have more psychopathic traits than readers of other newspapers, study finds.

Goat towers.

Life-sized camel. This one was created for the U.S. Marines as a dead camel training prop. Artificial fur (imported from Germany) .

I am confused on how she grew a foot of hair in an hour.

Several companies sell dildos in the shape of animal penises, both realistic and fantastical. This one is based on a wolf’s penis.

There are many philosophical questions surrounding the notion of lying. Is it ever morally acceptable to lie? Can we acquire knowledge from people who might be lying to us? More fundamental, however, is the question of what, exactly, constitutes the concept of lying. According to one traditional definition, lying requires intending to deceive. More recently, Thomas Carson has suggested that lying requires warranting the truth of what you do not believe.

This paper examines these two prominent definitions and some cases that seem to pose problems for them. Importantly, theorists working on this topic fundamentally disagree about whether these problem cases are genuine instances of lying and, thus, serve as counterexamples to the definitions on offer. To settle these disputes, we elicited judgments about the proposed counterexamples from ordinary language users unfettered by theoretical bias. The data suggest that everyday speakers of English count bald-faced lies and proviso lies as lies. Thus, we claim that a new definition is needed to capture common usage.

{ Philosophical Psychology | via Improbable }