Watch your 401k today
Sep 20, 2021 8:31 pm
The markets are dropping. I don't know if "this is the big one" or not. Time will tell.
But it's always important to give your assets the once-over every couple of months.
Today may be a good day to do that. Typically, there are multiple bad days in a row.
We've had 3 bad weeks (negative).
In other news...
***
Only 3% of prehistoric humans mated with their cousins — it’s 10% today!
LEIPZIG, Germany — Inbreeding is practice people often link to the distance past and prehistoric humans. However, a new genetic study finds only three percent of prehistoric people were the offspring of cousins. For comparison, researchers say that number is actually ten percent today.
The findings come from a genomic analysis of 1,785 individuals who lived over the last 45,000 years. Sex between cousins or second cousins has become over three times more common, according to an international team working on the project.
“Parental relatedness of present-day humans varies substantially across the globe, but little is known about the past,” writes lead author Dr. Harald Ringbauer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and his team in the journal Nature Communications.
Where did prehistoric humans mate with their cousins?
Previous studies have pointed to modern humans being the descendants of “extreme inbreeding” between close relatives over the years. However, the German team found our ancient ancestors rarely chose their cousins as mates.
Only 54 individuals from the sample showed typical signs of their parents being cousins. Dr. Ringbauer says the results are “surprising.”
Moreover, there were no clusters of cousins mating, indicating that these incidents were sporadic events. Notably, even for hunter-gatherers who lived more than 10,000 years ago, unions between cousins appear to have been the exception.
If anything points to “We're DOOMED,” it's this.
***
Get the rest of the Morning Sixpack here.
Make it a great day!
Bill
🍺 PS - Buy me a beer. I'm going to need it as I watch my (small) portfolio lose all its value.