42 years today.

Martin Luther King Jr was shot dead.

Seeing this video, no matter how many times I do it, sends chills down my spine.

42 years ago.

Just 42 years.

Indian Ancestry on Nature's cover. Awesome!

I just got this week's Nature magazine. (Yes, I have a personal subscription. There are copies of Nature and Science on my TV tray. Yes, I am a dork.)

And this is what is on the cover:

The actual article by Reich, Thangaraj, Patterson, Price and Singh (and a really neat "News and Views" section written by Aravinda Chakravarti at Hopkins) basically looks at the variation in genomes of individuals from India. Without getting into the weeds, what they did was to analyze DNA from 25 different groups in India, from different geographical areas, from different castes and language groups, and then do some statistical heavy lifting to look at how similar/dissimilar simple variations in sequences (SNPs) are across these groups.

What these studies reveal is something that anyone (myself included) may have intuited just by growing up in various parts of India. There is an amazing breadth of established groups/communities. I mean, anyone who has seen Indian currency will know that we have 15 national languages, and it is quite commonplace to cross state lines and have absolutely no idea what the hell is being spoken (upon which broken English and furious gesticulation will work). But what this study says is that there are basically "Ancestral North Indians" (ANI) and "Ancestral South Indians" (ASI) who have two distinct lineages (Indo-European and Dravidian, respectively), and current day Indians are basically a melange of these two lineages, with ANIs strong in the North and fading towards the South, and vice-versa with ASIs (the other language groups - Austro-asiatic, Tibeto-burman, and Andamanese are sub-variants of ANI and ASIs). This spectrum is reflected in skin color (light to dark), languages, and even caste structure. (Upper and middle tend to be more ANIs, lower castes tend to cluster with ASIs.

The group also makes a case for "founder effects" (basically, genetic bottlenecks) well AFTER 3000 BC when the Dravidians showed up, and 1500 BC when the Indo-European speakers showed up, suggesting that many dispersed communities were established and then they stayed put. The paper also reveals little nuggets - the Santhal and Kharia tribes, which are Austro-asiatic, are descendants of people that arrived 60,000 years ago? Yep, sixTY thousand. The groups also makes the case for marriages within communities (endogamy) has been happening for many centuries, resulting in some interesting disease predispositions.

Overall, this is one really cool study, which you should read (even if the stats may be somewhat inaccessible). As Chakravarti points out, this is only the start - many more detailed analyses should be done on the Indian population to get a true picture of the genetic tapestry that is India.

But that being said, the concept of ANIs and ASIs brings me back to something I have always said : North and South India are two different countries, man...

Population Increases = Crazy shortages

Just putting this BBC link up for now. Well worth reading, comments in a bit. Long story short, we better do something...

Groundwater Tables in India - a dire situation indeed

Did you read about this? The ground water is falling DRAMATICALLY in India. I mean, I knew that India's water resources are under some serious strain, but FIFTY FOUR CUBIC KILOMETERS LOST EVERY YEAR?????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

You can read Richard Kerr's article about it here ; the Original article is by VM Tiwari et. al., but I can't link to it right now. It includes some very cool satellite imaging that records very small localized changes in Earths gravity, and uses it to track water content at or below the surface.

Here is the money chart.



Green is OK; means the water tables are more or less stable. Not bad for most of central India and some of the west (which gets poured on every monsoon season). The blues indicate some trouble; unsurprisingly, Tamil Nadu in the south east is shaded blue; the state is always just that bit short on water (the North east monsoons yield less that far south; Bangladesh gets dumped on during that cycle).

But you see that GIANT swathe of dark blues, purples, and hot pinks?

Yeah, those people are FUCKED.

When you have 600 million or so people living in the plains of the Ganges and drawing on groundwater for irrigation to feed themselves, you're bound to run into problems. But 10 or more centimeters a year????

Oh Jeez. Oh Jeez. This is not going to end well.

Update: Reader Pzau points out that the states currently worst-hit by drought are in Central India, and therefore should be darker pink. Not quite. This graph shows you the rate of water table decline, which is independent of the current water table levels in any particular area. In fact, it is quite likely that areas that are already arid would have a small drop (if any) in the water table because the levels are already so low, they can't go any lower, either because the aquifiers have dried up, or because the satellite can no longer pick up changes in signals.

Why Operation Rescue is a Terrorist Organization

Take a look at my previous post on this subject, and the comment. Astute. While I have been pro-choice all this while, it's only now that I've started reading a bit about the dark world of the fringe "anti-abortion at ALL costs" groups. I was reading about the killing (which is bad enough as it is), and what is emerging is that the murder of Dr. Tiller was but one flash point in the chillingly well-planned terror campaign on a woman's right to choose. Yes, terror campaign. Yes, Terrorist Organization.

What do you call an organization that has a well-planned and unapologetic program of violent rhetoric and assassination of high profile opponents to instill fear in people in order to achieve their goal?

You call it a terrorist organization.

In this the case the terrorist organization is "Operation Rescue" (Scott Roeder, who is charged with killing Dr Tiller was but a pawn the organization), and their target is women who, for whatever reason, choose to terminate their pregnancy. (Read this moving diary from DKos about a woman who exemplifies exactly the kind of life story that pretty much IMO renders the whole debate moot). They kept egging people on - calling Dr Tiller a baby killer, calling him a Nazi, accusing him of being a mass murderer of 60,000 fetuses, until some fool went and actually killed him. Oh, they knew. They KNEW that there would be someone who would take it upon themselves to "do the right thing, and kill the devil". You can't spew hatred for decades, bomb clinics, harass nurses and doctors, defile their names, and then pretend you didn't do a thing. Manson didn't kill anybody personally, did he? Nope. Was he responsible for the deaths of people? Yep.

Oh sure, now they're backing away, (Here Media Matters NAILS Bill O'Reilly. Nice try, BillO, but YOU called him Baby Killer too) but make no mistake; these people have one agenda, and one agenda ONLY.

They aim to terrorize women by any means possible and take away any control that women have over their own bodies. And they will not stop unless we are honest, call them for what they are, and then do something about it.

How Fox News killed Dr. Tiller

Surely, you have already heard about this - the doctor from Wichita, Kansas who has been strongly pro-choice, and has performed abortions, including late-term abortions, was killed yesterday by a gunman. He was at Church.

Now, the controversy about late term abortions is valid, and should be debated. But why have a reasoned debate when you can create blind hatred? The right wing loves an enemy, and oh boy, did they ever have one in Dr Tiller. They have always hated the man, and they have created and then stoked the flames of the anti Tiller hysteria so much so that his clinic has been bombed, he has been shot, and his name sullied thoroughly. And now they have killed the man. True to their style, "pro-lifers" remain thoroughly unrepentant.

And if you have seen Fox "News", you would know that this man has been totally demonized by this channel. They have called him a Hitler, a Nazi, an executioner, and they even gave him a name: Tiller the baby killer. They taunt, they threaten, they vilify, and now they're surprised that someone would go and shoot the guy?

Olbermann had a great segment on this tonight. Watch it all the way, and quarantine Fox News. I know I will.