“They may have shaped the lands and defined and defended borders, and given us the days of the week (and hundreds of other words: “a berserk freckly husband is a blundering guest in hell”), but they don’t appear to have… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“The unglamorous truth is that there are but a handful of uniquely human traits that we have clearly demonstrated are adaptations evolved to thrive in specific geographical regions. Skin color is one. The ability to digest milk is another, which fits perfectly with the emergence of dairy farming (again, discussed in Chapter 2). The best-understood example of regional adaptation concerns… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share
“Except if you’re of European descent. Your lactase continues to work throughout your life. This unusual phenomenon is called lactase persistence, and although a… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“One fifth of people alive a millennium ago in Europe are the ancestors of no one alive today. Their lines of descent petered out… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“Nineteen teeth from twelve sixth-century plague pits in Aschheim near Munich provided the source of the Code of Justinian. In among the ancient human… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“There are dozens of documented cases of Roma or Irish Travelers being falsely accused of stealing children over the twentieth century, and back through… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“There’s a cave in this hinterland of Siberia, called Denisova, named after an eighteenth-century eremite called Denis who lived there.” — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“brain activity in a heartbeat. All of that says Richard. But the DNA in consort with the paper trail of a genealogy available only… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge . . . says Darwin in The Descent of Man, his study of the evolution of… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“crunching. The amount of introgression from Neanderthals is proportionally lower on the modern X than on the rest of the chromosomes. X chromosomes are only passed on by males half of the time because we also have a Y, but all of the time by women, who have two Xs. The observation that there is less Neanderthal DNA on our… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share
“Mind you, Darwin fretted about a lot of stuff, especially his health, his kids, and maybe with just cause. On occasion he would write… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
“Pedigree is a word derived from the middle French phrase pied de grue—the crane’s foot—as the digits and hallux spread from a single joint… — Adam Rutherford Copy Share Image
