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Sarah Zhang: You recently published two papers in which you analyzed over 600 genomes from ancient Europeans

Reich: In our hands, a successful sample costs less than $200. That’s only two or three times more than processing them on a present-day person

Reich: In Europe where we have the best data currently—although that will change over the coming years—we know a lot about how people have migrated. We know of multiple layers of population replacement over the last 50,000 years. Between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago in western Europe, the Neanderthals were replaced by modern human populations. The first modern human samples we have in Europe are about 40,000 years old and are genetically not at all related to present-day Europeans. They seem to be from extinct, dead-end groups.

For much of the 20th century, Japanese government officials and academics tried to hide the Ainu. They were an inconvenient culture at a time when the government was steadfastly creating a national myth of homogeneity.

So officials tucked the Ainu into files marked “human migration mysteries,” or “aberrant hunter-gatherers of the modern age,” or “lost Caucasoid race,” or “enigma,” or “dying race,” or even “extinct.”

But in 2006, under international pressure, the government finally recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous population.

the tell-tale hallmarks of the deep state are the accumulation of personal wealth via the revolving door, influence-peddling, and the more genteel forms of corruption. Ironically, then, Trump’s self-dealing kitchen cabinet pals, the constant revelations of the administration’s ethics problems, and its blatant public-be-damned attitude are indicative of a deep state on steroids.

It would seem in this case that Trump overcame his preference for nominating grossly unqualified political groupies in favor of a career official in order to dog-whistle to the Republican base that Bush-era torture is back and oversight is extinct.

Haspel’s prospects are complicated, however, by the fact that 109 retired generals and admirals have written a letter in opposition to her confirmation.

The Buddhist school of Tiantai originated in late 6th century China. It became enormously influential until it was nearly wiped out by the Emperor's repression of Buddhism in 845.

it thrived in Japan as Tendai Buddhism. It also was transmitted to Korea as Cheontae and to Vietnam as Thien Thai tong.

Tiantai was the first school of Buddhism to consider the Lotus Sutra to be the most cumulative and accessible expression of the Buddha's teaching.

In October 1812, Napoleon, conqueror of an empty and fire-blackened Moscow, pondered retreat. In Cassel, his youngest brother Jerome, King of Westphalia, had problems too

the King’s army would have done its work but for the disobedience of his corps commanders, especially General Reynier; secondly, that Jerome was dismissed before Napoleon knew the effect of his alleged failure; thirdly, that Jerome delayed leaving Warsaw because he was still playing the political role for which he had really been brought to Poland

even if Napoleon re-established the Kingdom, the Poles would insist on a Polish lung.2 This settled, Jerome turned to his military duties

The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said.

the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law.

Alston is critical of the “patently inadequate” steps taken by the UN itself, countries, NGOs and businesses, saying they are “entirely disproportionate to the urgency and magnitude of the threat”

because of the looming possibility of extinction, and in response to it from the emerging leadership among young people, we have reached a “climate moment” with real momentum, and our challenge as we go forward is to dramatically change the zeitgeist—“to lock in and consolidate public opinion that’s finally beginning to come into focus.”

It was 54 years ago, early in 1965, at the White House. Before I became President Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary (“over my dead body,” I might add), I was his special assistant coordinating domestic policy. One day, two members of the president’s science-advisory committee came by the offic

he had shaken up the prevailing consensus that the oceans were massive enough to soak up any amount of excess of carbon released on earth. Not so, Revelle discovered; the peculiar chemistry of sea water actually prevents this from happening. Now, he said, humans have begun a “vast geophysical experiment.” We were about to burn, within a few generations, the fossil fuels that had slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years. Burning so much oil, gas, and coal would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it would trap heat that otherwise would escape into space. Earth’s temperature could rise, causing polar ice to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding the earth’s coastal regions.

Sixty-seven percent of vertebrate wildlife species is projected to be extinct by 2020

if we avoid transgressing planetary boundaries we can maintain a semblance of the biosphere balance we enjoyed during the Holocene epoch of Earth history.

“The Holocene is the only equilibrium of the planet that we know for certain can support humanity as we know it,” he said. “We have no evidence to suggest that we could morally and ethically support 9.5 billion co-citizens with a minimum standard of good lives [outside of Holocene conditions].”

By 2050, there will be about 10 billion of us, and how to feed us all, healthily and from sustainable food sources, is something that is already being looked at

The Norway-based thinktank Eat and the British journal the Lancet have teamed up to commission an in-depth, worldwide study, which launches at 35 different locations around the world today, into what it would take to solve this problem

Their solution is contingent on global efforts to stabilise population growth, the achievement of the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement on climate change and stemming worldwide changes in land use, among other things

Ms. Paglia laments that the “antisex and repressively doctrinaire side of feminism is back again—big!” She calls it “victim feminism” and complains that “everything we’d won in the 1990s has been totally swept away. Now we have this endless privileging of victimhood, with a pathological vulnerability seen as the default human mode.”

As a teacher of undergraduates, Ms. Paglia despairs at how “bad it is for young people, filled with fears, to be raised in this kind of a climate where personal responsibility isn’t spoken of.” Since her own youth, she says, college students have devolved from rebels into skittish supplicants, petitioning people in authority to protect them from real life. Young adults are encouraged to look for “substitute parent figures on campus, which is what my generation rebelled against in college. We threw that whole ‘in loco parentis’ thing out.”

So why do young women feel victimized? Ms. Paglia cites the near-extinction of “body language” among the young and its impact on sexual relations on campus. The “loss of body language” starts in middle and high school, “where there’s total absorption in social media and projected images on Instagram, and so on. So they don’t know how to read each other, physically.

RIO DE JANEIRO — As dozens of fires scorched large swaths of the Amazon, the Brazilian government on Thursday struggled to contain growing global outrage over its environmental policies, which have paved the way for runaway deforestation of the world’s largest rain forest.

The fires, many intentionally set, are spreading as Germany and Norway appear to be on the brink of shutting down a $1.2 billion conservation initiative for the Amazon.

“The ongoing forest fires in Brazil are deeply worrying,” the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday. “Forests are our lungs and life support systems.”

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,”

“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystem are collapsing.

A new consortium of top scientists will be able to use some of the world’s most advanced supercomputers to look for solutions.

Advanced computers have defeated chess masters and learned how to pick through mountains of data to recognize faces and voices.

Now, a billionaire developer of software and artificial intelligence is teaming up with top universities and companies to see if A.I. can help curb the current and future pandemics.

Worse, all that has happened In just three weeks. That’s a rate of about 3.3 percent per week. At that rate, a quarter of the economy is unemployed in another three and a half weeks or so. What happens when a society reaches about 25% unemployment? Usually, it tips into chaos and upheaval. 40%? It implodes into autocracy.

Even wars and earthquakes don’t crater a whole labour force in weeks. We have no experience of such an event, really, in modern history

What do they really mean? As people lose their incomes, so they have to dip into their savings to survive. But the vast majority of Americans have no effective savings. So then people are forced to sell assets. The net result of a tidal wave of unemployment is that people are going to lose their incomes, then savings, then homes.

Broockman and Kalla surveyed over 40,000 people — far more than a typical poll — about head-to-head presidential matchups

when they weight their numbers to reflect the demographic makeup of the population rather than the likely electorate, as many polls do, Sanders beats Trump, often by more than other candidates.

Sanders loses a significant number of swing votes to Trump, but he makes up for them in support from young people who say they won’t vote, or will vote third party, unless Sanders is the nominee.

But for the absence of a sea of “Keep America Great Again” hats and Rolling Stones soundtrack, Donald Trump’s coronavirus press briefings at the White House are, critics say, increasingly resembling his 2020 re-election campaign rallies.Some critics have even called for TV networks to drop live coverage of the daily sessions because, by carrying the president’s words unfiltered, they are actively misleading their audiences and could harm public health.

Broadcasters were widely criticized for giving Trump’s speeches and rallies wall-to-wall coverage during the 2016 presidential election, granting him free exposure worth billions of dollars in advertising. Although campaign rallies have been suspended because of the virus, there are concerns that history is repeating itself, giving Trump an advantage over his likely opponent, Joe Biden. On Sunday and Monday, the briefings shifted to late afternoon, giving Trump access to peak viewing hours.McCurry, now a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary, said he “tends to agree” with the view that networks should not carry the entire briefings live.“Putting it on because it’s better than whatever else is available to daytime TV is not a good reason. It shouldn’t be a platform for the president to just give out his own message. It’s not reality television,” he said.

Perhaps sensing political opportunity, Trump moved swiftly to regain the limelight and become master of ceremonies. At times, he has reassured viewers with an uncharacteristically solemn tone. But at others, he has reverted to his buccaneering style, over-promising vaccines or therapies – forcing experts to contradict him – or throwing a tantrum at a reporter who challenged him.

Few places on the planet are more at risk from the climate crisis than south Florida, where more than 8 million residents are affected by the convergence of almost every modern environmental challenge – from rising seas to contaminated drinking water, more frequent and powerful hurricanes, coastal erosion, flooding and vanishing wildlife and habitat.

Below are some of the biggest threats posed by the climate crisis to south Florida today, along with solutions under consideration. Some of these solutions will have a lasting impact on the fight. Others, in many cases, are only delaying the inevitable. But in every situation, doing something is preferable to doing nothing at all.

Sea level rise The threat: By any estimation, Florida is drowning. In some scenarios, sea levels will rise up to 31in by 2060, a devastating prediction for a region that already deals regularly with tidal flooding and where an estimated 120,000 properties on or near the water are at risk. The pace of the rise is also hastening, scientists say – it took 31 years for the waters around Miami to rise by six inches, while the next six inches will take only 15 more.

Vegas, Baby

Las Vegas will not “reopen” because the city as we knew it in February 2020 is gone.

Las Vegas is the 28th-largest metropolitan area in America, home to 2.2 million people. Its main business is gambling-related tourism. The city welcomes roughly 42 million visitors a year who pour $58 billion dollars into the local economy and support 370,000 jobs. Almost 40 percent of the area’s workers are employed in the hospitality industry.

oil spill off the coast of California. Half a century later, this annual day unites millions across the globe, drawing attention to the huge challenges facing our planet.

Now more than ever, Earth Day offers an opportunity for us all to reflect upon our relationship with the planet, amid the most powerful possible message that nature can surprise us at any moment, with devastating consequences for pretty much every individual. It is a time when the health of the planet and its people has never been so important.

There was much talk of nature as the bridge between the biodiversity and climate crises, of nature-based solutions such as forestation, peatland restoration and the protection of mangroves as the answers to some of the challenges we face today, and of natural capital supporting sustainable development and human wellbeing.