According to the paper, they tested ten different split-and-merge scenarios and this one was the most likely. But they give some important caveats, including:

• They assume that the smaller group had a more-or-less constant population size—if it fluctuated significantly, some of their other predictions on the dating of the split and merge might be off.

• They can’t rule out more complicated scenarios, like three or more splits and merges (but they can rule out the simpler scenario of no splits).

They do say that they tested their model on a number of other species (including chimps, bats, and dolphins), and got results consistent with those species’ known evolutionary histories.

Some animals are more equal than others!

They compared the entire genomes of 26 different modern human populations, and modeled their history to account for the patterns in the modern genomes.

For example, suppose a particular gene has two distinct groups within the modern genomes, with each group showing similar mutations within the group that are different from the mutations in the other group. You can infer that the two groups represent a split into two populations that later recombined, and you can infer the time of the split and the relative population sizes of the two groups from the number of mutations in each group.

Do that for the entire genome and you can make finer-grained inferences, like determining which genes experienced positive or negative selection pressure.

Ok—to the extent that SVG is HTML, the variant of HTML that it is is a flavor of XML.

More precisely, both are flavors of XML.

The second law of thermodynamics.

A poem by the 19th-century radical essayist Leigh Hunt, referencing an 8th-century Bactrian Sufi mystic.

Also, be sure to fully specify the location—one time I just put “Athens” and ended up in Athens, Georgia.

The most common theories of reincarnation hold that it is punishment for misdeeds in past lives.

Musical notes have a characteristic volume “envelope”—attack, decay, sustain, and release. The loudest part of the note is near the start, when some initial disturbance causes something to vibrate. The decay of the vibration is at least partly caused by the second law of thermodynamics: the energy of the vibration is being lost to the environment in the form of heat and sound, and the amplitude decreases exponentially with the energy.

If you play it in reverse, it sounds like the vibration is being fed energy from an external source and then abruptly cut off.

I like Molly White’s recent take, that it might be more productive to treat this as a labor issue instead of a copyright issue (at least in principle). Even if the AI corporations aren’t technically re-selling copyrighted works, they’re still profiting from the authors’ unpaid labor.

If there are a bunch of posts on a particular topic, shouldn’t it keep at least one of them? Otherwise it would tend to completely filter out the most significant or interesting topics.

I had a really good pizza topped with stinging nettle once.

I always insist on colors within the visible spectrum.

(4) you pass, barely

That implies that 1, 2, and 3 are all failing (perhaps with different degrees of embarrassment). If all failure is equivalent in practice, you might as well maximize the non-failing outcomes and go with A.

I don’t think we’re usually conscious of the availability of multiple narratives to the point that we can mentally simulate each one and compare their potential utility.

The choices we consciously make are the ones that arise inside of narratives, not between narratives themselves.

we will choose the one in which we profit the most

I think we’ll choose the narrative most consistent with our existing worldview, even if it hurts our own interests.

Causality, like entropy, is an emergent property that’s hard to pin down formally, but is a critical element of any narrative. I’m with you that far, but how do price tags and double breakage figure in?

Further images reveal how massive galaxies surrounded by dark matter, the invisible substance said to pervade the universe, warp space and magnify more distant galaxies behind them.

So Euclid’s images violate Euclid’s parallel postulate.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords.