Horse-riding Huns & Mongols Spread Hepatitis B, Plague into the Western Eurasia and Replaced Scythians

A very cool series of three studies were published several days ago in Science and Nature that I just have to share. The punchline is ultimately how ancient DNA helps us understand how the horsemen Huns & Mongols of Eurasia supplanted sedentary Indo-European with Hepatitis B and other communicable diseases. Books like the Horse, Wheel...

The Indo-European Language Tree

To supplement last week's discussion on language evolution, I stumbled upon an Indo-European language tree posted on Jonathan Beaton's blog. Neither Jonathan nor I know where it was published, nor what data was used to construct the tree and its relationships. So it may not be completely accurate... but it is a nifty illustration. Just...