dwarkesh.com

David Reich – Why the Bronze Age was an inflection point in human evolution

Selection went especially bonkers during the Bronze Age (around 3,000 years ago). That's when gene frequencies for everything from immune function to body fat to intelligence were most in flux. Over the last 10,000 years, selection pushed the genetic predictor of cognitive performance up by roughly a full standard deviation — most of it between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago.

themarginalian.org

The Black Robin and the Power of Tenacious Tenderness: How a Single Mother Brought an Entire Species Back from the Brink of Extinction

All the black robins in the world today, numbering around 250, are fractal emissaries of her genes — a winged reminder that immensities of harm can be undone by a single act of tenacious tenderness.

3quarksdaily.com

What Your DNA Reveals About the Sex Life of Neanderthals

In a study published on Thursday in the journal Science, a team of researchers report that men with a lot of Neanderthal ancestry and women with a lot of modern human ancestry had a strong preference to mate with each other. However it played out, the preference was intense.