Battle of the Sexes - ix_a

It seems the mystic questions in the previous post were the outcome of my inability to grasp the knowledge or plain misunderstanding. I said;

Men trying to match up is understandable but why do women try to match down? What are those restrictions at cell level?

Based on the information in the article;

Men must increase gene expression on their lone X-chromosome to match the two X's possessed by women. A new study explains just how men manage to do that.

In mammals, cells therefore work to emphasize, or "upregulate," the lone X-chromosome in males and de-emphasize, or "downregulate," the extra X-chromosome in females.

However, it appears the both male and female X-chromosomes are upregulated (male X-> 2X and females 2X->4X). But females downregulate their upregulaged X-chromosomes (thus 2X same as males). From the new study;

Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y. The lack of a 'back up' copy of the X chromosome in males contributes to many disorders that have long been observed to occur more often in males, such as hemophilia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and certain types of color blindness. Having only one copy of X and two copies of every other chromosome also creates a more fundamental problem -- with any other chromosome, the gene number imbalance resulting from having only one copy would be lethal. How can males survive with only one X?
Biologists have been debating how organisms and cells manage the imbalance between X and other chromosomes for years, with the dominant theory being that both sexes up-regulate the expression of X-linked genes, essentially doubling their expression to "2X" in males and "4X" in females. Then, to correct the imbalance that now appears in females (since they have the equivalent of "4" Xs now and 2 of every other chromosome), females then 'turn off' one of the hyperactive X chromosomes, resulting in a balanced "2X" expression of those genes across both sexes.

That doesn't lead to philosophical pondeings over the implications. Science sometimes acts as a dampener to imaginatively inclined imbecile.

Via Science Daily

Origins of Indians: Version 8.4.2

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
A new paper by Reich et al. (2011) has made the following conclusions:

• Denisovans interbred with modern humans in Southeast Asia at least 44,000 years ago before the time of the separation of the Australians and New Guineans.
• Southeast Asia was first colonized by modern humans unrelated to present-day Chinese and Indonesians, and that these and other East Asians arrived in later migrations. This "southern route" hypothesis has previously been supported by archaeological evidence, but has never had strong genetic support.

According to them Denisovans were spread from Siberia to S E Asia until 30000 years ago. As of now, this is an unbelievable idea considering;
- Until now Denisovans remains were found in Siberia only
- All remains that were found in East Asia and SE Asia belonged H.erectus branches.
- A recent study has calculated that all these erectus branches were vanished from East Asia long before modern Humans moved to those lands

As we can see from the above points, we have a situation where archeologists could find remains of older hominins that perished around 400k years ago and probably more restricted East Asian regions but not those of Denisovans spread even wider area and lived at least until 40k years ago.

According to the article:

Their analysis shows that, in addition to New Guineans, Denisovans contributed genetic material to Australian aborigines, a Philippine "Negrito" group called Mamanwa, and several other populations in eastern Southeast Asia and Oceania. However, groups in the west or northwest, including other Negrito groups such as the Onge in the Andaman Islands and the Jehai in Malaysia, as well as mainland East Asians, did not interbreed with Denisovans.

I think Y-Haplogroup lines C2, C4 and C6 ( in fact their female counter parts of a human tribe with node haplogroup line of these) could have mated with Denisovans in north-western East Asia and moved to SE Asia.

Via Science Daily

Lineage and Language - 0.2

Previously, when I made a random comparison between uni-parental lineage distribution and the language families I found majority were associated with male lineages. Exceptions were Dravdian, Basque, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages.

There is a new study that discusses about this phenomenon and also thinks languages were spread patrilineally.  Anyway, I would think the process would involve some women too.

Even if the invading or immigrating males formed the majority, without few women among them, there wouldn't be any societal setup for the language survive. I would say, those few women would have formed a societal core in the foreign lands around which out married males propagated their language to the new lands. Had it been only males the chances are remote that they would have been able to create the societal core and more likely they would have taken up the local languages.

Even in Dravidian lands, we don't find corresponding female lines for the male lines. That probably shows migrants were almost completely males.

If we go by this logic, the idea of 'mother tongue' still holds good because at the end of the day it's the societal core setup by the minority females in the foreign lands that propagated the language.

Random Thoughts - IX_c

Even though majority middle class Indians have remained loyal to their 10-20% corrupt self and didn't take part in the movement against corruption recently, there was a tiny fraction who did take part considering their greater uncorrupt self. I wonder whether it's a hypocrisy or what. I'm not sure.

What these fake billers or tax evaders are protesting probably is the lack of human decency in direct interactions. Evading tax probably doesn't come across as villainy as that villainy in a way self directed and also requires a broader view of the society.

The interactions with a policeman or government officials in charge of licensing or a railway ticket collector is not something that one looks forward to. We would  meet these people with power expecting them to demean their propriety. It disgusts us how people can be so nonchalant and ask money directly or indirectly. It humiliates us that people in the mainstream society indulge in the loot of our natural resources or misappropriate the money we give as tax.

It is as if without any personal animosity, people have decided to debase themselves and spoil the well defined personal interactions. We have to face the unpleasantness of these interactions which has nothing to do with our fault but just because some people want to make undeserved extra money.

If anything, corruption has killed justice and respect in man to man interactions. This has added bitterness in our sense of civilized human beings. It's not the money but likely, this loss of decency when it comes to personal interactions and loss of trust with people who misappropriate money, that demoralizes people.

I guess many people were not protesting against corruption but fighting to reinstate propriety and trust in our society.

Buddhism and Jainism in South India - 8

I am writing this post by considering non-violence as the core concept of Buddhism and Jinaism. Sometime back I read a 9th century Kannada Jain work 'Vaddaradhane' (Filial Piety). What really struck me was the kind of barbaric death that the people had to experience to attain Nirvana. Some were killed by wild beasts in a revolting fashion or some were killed in grotesque accidents (sucked into a machine and cut into pieces).

These interpretations of non-violence or violence directed inwards ( and Gandhi was inspired by this and not by Jesus... where he merely found his backing) makes me think that  Buddhism and Jinaism were completely misinterpreted schools of thoughts when it comes to non-violence.

The way to understand the non-violence aspect of Buddhism and Jinaism is to look at the background of people who espoused these two religions. They all came from warrior classes. For these people, violence was a way of life. It's the truth. So, it makes sense for thinkers among them to delve into non-violence. I guess this is the same reason Stoicism looks good on Marcus Aurelius and not on me, a self-styled stoic. I never had power.

But does that justify the kind of inwardly directed violence that these Jain texts extol as a way to Nirvana? I suppose these thoughts infested Jinaism after it was taken over by non-warrior classes. These classes have blindly taken up non-violence and have taken it to the extreme. Since violence of battles or wars was never part of their life, they felt the need to direct violence against themselves so as to give validity to their non-violent way of life.


How can non-warrior classes then apply Buddhism or Jinaism to their life? I suppose they need to look into their way of life and humanize it. Let us consider a merchant. Should he be disgusted with money making (I suppose few Jains renounce wealth at some point in their life as a meaningless thing) or money making through dubious means?

Let's consider a warrior in this case. Should he be ashamed of defending his country? I think not. I would think he should be if he is attacking other countries out of greed thus being responsible for too much grief. The famous story of Ashoka has found this situation as a true reason to embrace the idea of non-violence.

Logically,  a merchant, for whom non-violence is a way of life, should make the dichotomy between money making through dubious means and money making through straight means if he follows Buddhism or Jinaism. But India's past history doesn't give any such ideas. At present, these religions are just fads.

Rise of patriarchal society - VII_a

I have discussed how matrifocal tradition viewed semen as nurture and equated it with the rain. This idea was in contrast to patrifocal idea of the womb as nurture and its identification with the earth. As an example for matrifocal ideas getting mixed with patriarchal gods, I had talked about northern Indian tradition of women stripping to please the rain god, Indra.

Now, it appears this tradition could be found in Dravidian lands too. I wonder whether the idea was again a syncretization of the older matrifocal world view with the later partrifocal ideas independently in  South or it came to South because of the northern migrations.

The article doesn't say who the aroused rain god is. Most likely Indra and not Varuna.

Newspaper article h/t: Nirmuka Facebook page.

Origins of Indians: Version 8.4.1

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
In my previous post on the subject, I discussed how a new finding of admixture between Homo Sapiens and the Denisovans in Siberia bolster my claims of the northern route (that didn't touch India) of early Homo Sapiens. A new study has now completely discarded the idea of Modern Humans mating with an Erectus branch in SE Asia thus further strengthening the fact that all admixture in Melanesians can only be attributed to their Neanderthal infested northern route than to the Erectus infested southern route.

From the study:

Homo erectus went extinct in Africa and much of Asia by about 500,000 years ago, but appeared to have survived in Indonesia until about 35,000 to 50,000 years ago at the site of Ngandong on the Solo River. These late members of Homo erectus would have shared the environment with early members of our own species, Homo sapiens, who arrived in Indonesia by about 40,000 years ago.

The existence of the two species simultaneously has important implications for models about the origins of modern humans. One of the models, the Out of Africa or replacement model, predicts such overlap. However, another, the multiregional model, which posits that modern humans originated as a result of genetic contributions from hominin populations all around the Old World (Africa, Asia, Europe), does not. The late survival of Homo erectus in Indonesia has been used as one line of support for the Out of Africa model.

However, findings by the SoRT Project show that Homo erectus' time in the region ended before modern humans arrived there. The analyses suggest that Homo erectus was gone by at least 143,000 years ago -- and likely by more than 550,000 years ago. This means the demise of Homo erectus occurred long before the arrival of Homo sapiens.

"Thus, Homo erectus probably did not share habitats with modern humans," said Indriati.

Original Father of Dravidian Speakers - Va

I don't think 'appe' and 'appUppa' has anything to do with matrilineal bond between Tuluvas and Malayalis. Since the word 'abbe' is also observed in literary Kannada (mostly Jain) and in the personal names of many Kannada Jain queens, that shows Jain influence in Kannada, Tulu and Malayala regions. Since Tulu region was under Jain rulers until 20th century, 'appe' probaby became a common term. Whereas, in Kannada region by 12th century all Jain ruling classes have vanished thus the elite word 'abbe' didn't become part of common parlance. I don't think there were any Jain rulers in Kerala region (not sure of the Tamil kings of the past), however, the influence could have been there as merchant classes generally patronized Jinaism.

Original Father of Dravidian Speakers - V

Now my daughter calls her maternal grandfather 'appa' as she can't pronounce 'appUppa.. The word  appuppa literally means father's father thus I guess the usage for a mother's father is strange. Another intriguing factor we need to observe is the structure of the terms used for maternal grandparents.

mother's father -> appUppa
mother's mother -> ammUmma
Compare them with paternal grandparents
father's father -> achchachcha
father's mother -> achchamma

If maternal grandparents followed the similar structure as that of paternal grandparents then,
mother's father should have been ammappa
mother's mother -> ammamma

So, it clearly shows that pre-words appa and amma in maternal grandparents didn't mean post-words appa and amma. We probably need to hark back on the Tulu-Malayali shared cultural background to understand this.

In Tulu (as I have discussed elsewhere), the word for mother is 'appe' and father 'amme'. Thus it's very clear that maternally Tuluva-s and Malayali-s were connected before, thus the antique word for mother has been retained in Malayalam as 'appUppa'. What about the second word which obviously meant 'father' as in many Dravidian languages. It's still a mystery why appa is father in other Dravidian languages and mother in Tulu. The difference is in parallel to matrilineal and patrilineal distinctions of Tuluva-Malayalis on the one hand and the rest of the Dravidians on the other.

Whatever be the reasons behind appe-amme dichotomy between partilineal and matrilineal Dravidians, we can confidently say that appUppa is a throwback to Tuluva-Malayali shared history (observed in many cultural aspects even today) of the past. That still leaves me to explain the construction appe+appa.

In my opinion, 'appa' came to Malayali society as a honorific (just like achcha) likely from Tamil region. We need to note that 'ajja', Kannada equivalent of 'achcha', is a term for grandfather in Karnataka. It is possible that both 'appa' and 'achcha' that came as honorifics in Dravidian society replaced the original term for father in Dravidian lands.

I suppose the original maternal grandfather and grandmother
appe+appa -> appEppa -> appUppa
appe+amma -> appEmma -> ammUmma ( a case of over correction in later centuries)

Random Thoughts - IX_b

I suppose some people need to have this self-satisfaction of being corrupts in their small way as it shields them from the reality of humiliation of being looted. I don't understand the smugness of all these fake-billers when they anyway pay the bulk of their IT and pay taxes in multiple ways. Of course, respect to people who skip paying taxes completely. But again what about our natural resources?