Genetic legacies of human invasions

Really interesting stuff: according to the BBC, a paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics reports that a faint genetic legacy of the Crusades appears in Lebanon, mostly among Lebanese Christians. And while Lebanese Christians and Muslims are overwhelmingly of the same stock genetically, Lebanese Muslim populations showed a genetic signature originating [...]

What is natural? Reinterpreting rivers in the eastern US

One of the fundamental questions faced in ecological restoration is that of trying to find a “natural” baseline to work towards. This is especially true in Europe and eastern North America - these are the areas where so much fundamental ecological work was done, but by the time this work was done, they were [...]