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Genome Biol
January 2025
Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Background: Genetic variation in the non-recombining part of the human Y chromosome has provided important insight into the paternal history of human populations. However, a significant and yet unexplained branch length variation of Y chromosome lineages has been observed, notably amongst those that are highly diverged from the human reference Y chromosome. Understanding the origin of this variation, which has previously been attributed to changes in generation time, mutation rate, or efficacy of selection, is important for accurately reconstructing human evolutionary and demographic history.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Departament de Medicina i Ciències de la Vida, Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr. Aiguader 88, Barcelona, 08003, Catalonia, Spain.
Ibiza (Eivissa) is one of the main Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean. Recent studies have highlighted the genetic distinctiveness of present-day Eivissans within the region and suggested it could be attributed to the genetic drift caused by recent demographic events. Whether this distinctiveness emerged from a differential demographic history, or rather from a bias for sampling in a small geographic region such as Eivissa, remains an open question, together with the understanding of the functional consequences of demography in the island.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcol Lett
January 2025
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Modern African ungulates navigate seasonal variation in resource availability through diet-switching (primarily mixed-feeders) and/or migrating (primarily grass grazers). These ecological generalisations are well-documented today, but the extent to which they apply to the non-analog ecosystems of the Pleistocene are unclear. Drawing from serially-sampled stable isotope measurements from 18 Kenyan large herbivore species from the Last Glacial Period (LGP), we evaluate how diet, diet-switching, and migration compare to observations from present-day settings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhilos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
December 2024
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, QET Labs and Photonics and Quantum Group, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UB, UK.
This paper presents a short history of the discovery by Rodney Loudon and Heidi Fearn of the counter-intuitive destructive interference effect occurring when two indistinguishable photons meet at a beamsplitter. This effect, commonly known as the Hong Ou Mandel effect, underpins much of present day photonic quantum information processing. Here I try to review its development from inception to present day proposals of million qubit photonic quantum computers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo 0316, Norway.
The Qin and Western Han dynasties (221 BCE to 24 CE) represent an era of societal prosperity in China. However, due to a lack of high-resolution paleoclimate records it is still unclear whether the agricultural boost documented for this period was associated with more favorable climatic conditions. Here, multiparameter analysis of annually resolved tree-ring records and process-based physiological modeling provide evidence of stable and consistently humid climatic conditions during 270 to 77 BCE in northern China.
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