Why can't people just think?

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Tue, 21 May 2013 08:51:14 +0100

anothermindpalace: I was disappearing in plain sight. Heaven...

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:35:15 +0100

I was disappearing in plain sight. Heaven help me, I need to make it right.

Request by holmosexual: can you do faceless sherlock, just sherlock?

jtotheizzoe: Common Descent There’s a famous old anecdote about...

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:19:31 +0100

jtotheizzoe:

Common Descent

There’s a famous old anecdote about Charlemagne that’s been used for ages to explain how interconnected we are among our biological pasts. It has been said that everyone of European ancestry is related to Charlemagne, the great King of the Franks, born in 742 AD. If you’re European, you’re royalty. How is that possible?

I’ll tell you another tidbit first: Not only do all Europeans share Charlemagne as an ancestor, they share everyone alive at the same time as Charlemagne as an ancestor. Everyone who had kids, anyway. Let me explain:

Everyone alive has two biological parents. They each have two parents themselves, for a total of four grandparents. For x number of generations that you travel back in time, you have 2^x direct grandparents of increasing separation. Extrapolate that back to Charlie’s time, and you’d need 1 trillion grandparents to cover all your ancestral bases. Michael from Vsauce did a video about it. Since that’s far more people than have ever been alive, we need to engage some incest to solve the problem. Not banjo-applesauce incest, just a bit of redrawing our family trees into family webs.

Somewhere, far enough back in the web of grandparents, we will find a person whose lines connect to every single person who comes after them. That zig-zagged trail of shared genetic history ends surprisingly recently (for Euros, again): A common European ancestor around 1400 AD. Go a bit farther, and we find a common Earthling ancestor around 3,000 BC. It’s neat stuff. But it’s all based in mathematical models, not real genetic data.

Until now. USC and UC Davis researchers Peter Ralph and Graham Coop have surveyed the genomes of 2,257 Europeans in order to put some real data behind those models. Because of the random shuffling of chromosome fragments that created your father’s sperm and your mother’s egg, you, your siblings and your cousins all share varying chunks of DNA. People who are more closely related share more of these chunks. Depending on how many chunks are shared between two people, we can calculate their approximate relation to each other. Using 2 million shared sequences and a lot of math, they proved the mathematical models correct. Turkish people are more related to other Turks than to someone from Portugal, but they are related enough that, not only do they share one common ancestor a few hundred years ago, but they share every ancestor if you go back a mere thousand years. The models guessed that a long time ago, but now we have the data to prove it.It’s likely that these patterns extend to other regions of Earth, although the numbers might be slightly (but not that) different.

Next time someone in your neck of the ethnic woods points out a famous relative or claims blue-blood descent, remind them that they aren’t so special. All street-sweepers are royalty, all nobles are peasants, and we are all Kings and Queens.

Read more at NatGeo. Have more questions? Also check out the great FAQ on the project from the researchers themselves.

forever-classyx: Oh my gosh people, be nice to your waiter/waitress, it’s not their fault that your...

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:03:39 +0100

forever-classyx:

Oh my gosh people, be nice to your waiter/waitress, it’s not their fault that your food is cold or if it’s under cooked. Be nice to the cashiers who are still training and can’t ring up your items as quickly as you want. If a stranger smiles and says hello to you, smile and say hello back! It’s just common courtesy, I don’t understand why people have to be so rude.

☯✞ follow me for more euro grunge ✞☯

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:57:24 +0100

☯✞ follow me for more euro grunge ✞☯

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Tue, 21 May 2013 03:47:55 +0100

ishowerwithcats: I ship zachary quinto with myself

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:47:20 +0100

ishowerwithcats:

I ship zachary quinto with myself

It’s My Life - Cezar because everyone needs this in their...

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:42:24 +0100

It’s My Life - Cezar

because everyone needs this in their life

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Tue, 21 May 2013 02:32:01 +0100

scallawag: beyoncespenis | robertvision: Frank Ocean - Bad...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:35:57 +0100

scallawag:

beyoncespenis | robertvision:

Frank Ocean - Bad Romance (Lady Gaga Cover)

my hair looks super cool rn in my mirror like the roots go from dark to hot pink and then it fades...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:32:41 +0100

my hair looks super cool rn in my mirror like the roots go from dark to hot pink and then it fades into a sort of peachy colour and it actually looks p. nifty curly

but then i tried to take a picture and ????

peabug: getdestroyed-staydestroyed: Sleep Paralysis is a...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:21:21 +0100

peabug:

getdestroyed-staydestroyed:

Sleep Paralysis is a phenomenon in which people, either falling asleep or waking up, temporarily experience the inability to move. Scientifically its the transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle atonia (muscle weakness).

I’ve known several people who have had sleep paralysis, who have even made characters who share the same trait. I’ve never suffered from it myself but I find the folklore around it fascinating, because no matter what nation of origin it always has to do with the visitation of a demon or vengeful spirit who either sits on, restrains, or strangles said victim. And so I drew my own little depiction of it, complete with a demon girl puking black stuff on a guy.

I dunno, sue me.

Fun Fact Of the Day #1 the myth of the succubus and incubus came out of the hallucinations people have when they experience sleep paralysis

Fun Fact Of The Day #2 this dude’s art is so fucking rad

friendlycloud: hitlervevo: why the fuck cant we text the police lets say there is a murderer in ur...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:06:17 +0100

friendlycloud:

hitlervevo:

why the fuck cant we text the police

lets say there is a murderer in ur house and you’re hiding behind your sofa and you do have your phone with you but you can’t call the police because the murderer might hear you

Relevant

fun fact: in the uk you can contact the police by text, but you have to register your phone first (details of how to do so can be found here)

ive literally spent the whole day eating and watching kitchen nightmares

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:58:09 +0100

ive literally spent the whole day eating and watching kitchen nightmares

Mr. Robert Downey

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:44:43 +0100

Mr. Robert Downey

iseeavoice: I HAVE NOTHING TO ENTERTAIN ME TODAY...

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:43:48 +0100

iseeavoice:

I HAVE NOTHING TO ENTERTAIN ME TODAY (screencaps)

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Mon, 20 May 2013 21:29:05 +0100

ironspy: Avengers Business Cards - Just because

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:49:47 +0100

ironspy:

Avengers Business Cards - Just because

the-vashta-nerada: have you ever cried over a character i don’t mean in the way a lot of people say...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:25:45 +0100

the-vashta-nerada:

have you ever cried over a character

i don’t mean in the way a lot of people say like “OMG ALL MY FEELS MY CREYS”

no

i mean

have you ever felt such emotion towards a character that you just cried

because you wanted to be with them and help them and make them feel better

because they’ve helped you so much but you can never do the same for them

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Mon, 20 May 2013 20:13:06 +0100