title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: The Japanese had started the second war and renewed their offensive, laying siege and capturing the city of Namwon in September 26 and fighting the Ming Chinese army to a standstill in Jiksan on September 7. The Japanese army then awaited supplies and reinforcements from their navy, who would need to enter the Yellow Sea to reach the western coast of Korea. The army, thus supported by their navy, planned to make a major push to recapture Hanyang (modern Seoul).


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Admiral Yi Sun-sin was hastily reinstated as Supreme Commander of the Regional Navies after Won Gyun was killed at the Battle of Chilchonryang. Yi initially only had 10 panokseon ships at his disposal, which had been saved by Gyeongsang Right Naval Commander Bae Seol, who retreated early in the Battle of Chilchonryang. Bae Seol had originally saved 12 ships, but lost two while on his retreat towards Hoeryongpo. Two ships were brought by newly-appointed Jolla Right Naval Commander Kim Eok-chu, and by the time of the battle, Yi had acquired another warship, likely one of the two that Bae Seol had previously lost. Thus, in total, Yi had 13 warships. Although Yi only found 120 men initially, some of the survivors of Chilchonryang rallied to him, and he had at least 1,500 sailors and marines by the end of September.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: At that time, King Seonjo, who judged that the Joseon navy had lost its power and would never be restored again, sent a letter to disband the navy and have its men join the ground forces under General Kwon Yul. Admiral Yi responded with his own letter, stating: "Your majesty, this vassal still has twelve battleships (今臣戰船 尙有十二, 지금 신에게는 아직도 열두 척의 전선이 있습니다). ... Even though our navy is small, as long as I live the enemy will not dare to look down on us (戰船雖寡 微臣不死 則不敢侮我矣, 비록 전선의 수가 적으나 미천한 신이 아직 죽지 아니하였으니 왜적들이 감히 우리를 업신여기지 못할 것입니다)."


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Before the main body of the Japanese navy advanced into the Yellow Sea, they sent out a few probing missions with armed scouting parties. At this time, Admiral Yi's fleet was south of the Myeongnyang Strait near Oranpo. On October 8, an advanced scouting party of eight Japanese vessels staged a surprise attack, which the Joseon fleet drove off. Yi retreated further north to Byeokpajin, on the northern end of Jindo island. On October 12, Bae Seol fled (he would be found later by Joseon authorities and executed for desertion). On October 17, a Japanese scouting fleet of 13 ships launched a night attack which, after heavy fighting, was also repulsed.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: By this time, through the reports of their scouting forces, the Japanese were aware of the presence of Joseon naval remnants that intended to resist their advance. Well armed scouting forces alone were not going to defeat or scatter the Joseon remnants, so the Japanese began amassing a much larger fleet. Admiral Yi's diary mentions reports of around 55 Japanese ships massing near Oranpo on October 17. With Japanese naval activity increasing, Admiral Yi did not want to fight a major battle with his back to the Myeongnyang Strait, so on October 25 he decided to withdraw further north and hide his ships in the shadow of the hills on the opposite (northern) side of the Myeongnyang Strait, near Usuyeong (우수영).


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Admiral Yi studied numerous sites for his last stand with the Japanese navy and decided on luring them into the Myeongryang Strait. The Japanese would clearly enter the strait when the tide was favorable and so he did not want to fight south of the strait, with the current at the attacker's advantage. Instead he wanted to fight in the waters just north of the strait, where the currents were calmer. The strait had very strong currents that flowed at approximately 10 knots, first in one direction, then in the opposite direction, in three-hour intervals. Yi realized that he could use the unique condition as a force multiplier. The narrowness of the strait would prevent the Joseon fleet from being flanked by the numerically superior enemy fleet, and the roughness of the currents prevented the Japanese from effectively maneuvering, forcing them to attack in smaller groups and making it difficult to close in with the Korean ships. Furthermore, once the tide changed the flow of the current would in effect push the Japanese away from Yi's fleet and the momentum could be harnessed to increase the effectiveness of a counterattack.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Early in the morning of October 26, the huge Japanese fleet was spotted by Yi's scouts as they deployed around the small bay on the southern end of Myeongnyang strait. Admiral Yi's fleet then redeployed out of their base in Usuyeong to block the northern end of the strait. Yi described scouts reporting countless enemy ships in the morning prior to battle, with 133 attacking. In Japanese records, the ships at the front of their formations were the middle class warships called "Sekibune", as the larger Atakebune could not fit into the shallow straits.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Yi's warships deployed on the northern end of the strait and dropped anchor. Yi in his flagship advanced upon the vanguard of the Japanese fleet, which was commanded by Kurushima Michifusa. For a time only the flagship fought in the battle. The crews of the Joseon fleet were made up of survivors from Chilchonryang and they were still badly shaken and intimidated by the overwhelming size of the Japanese fleet. Yi said in his diary: "My flagship was alone facing the enemy formation. Only my ship fired cannons and arrows. None of the other ships advanced, so I could not assure our outcome. All other officers were seeking to run, as they knew this battle was against a massive force. Ship commanded by Kim Eok-chu, the Officer of Jeolla Right province, was 1~2 "majang" (1 majang: approximately 390 metres) away." For a time it looked like Yi's flagship was "... standing like a castle in the middle of the sea."


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: The flagship's ability to hold out against the Japanese vanguard eventually gave heart to the rest of Yi's fleet and small groups of his ships came to his aid. First came a ship commanded by local magistrate An Wi and then several ships commanded by central squadron leader Kim Ung-ham. Seeing the success of the flagship and the handful of other boats, the rest of Yi's fleet joined in the fight.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: The tide soon shifted and the Japanese ships began to drift backwards and collide with each other. In the confusion, Admiral Yi ordered his ships to advance and press the attack, ramming 31 Japanese ships. The dense formation of Japanese ships crowded in the narrow strait made a perfect target for Joseon cannon fire. The strong tides prevented those in the water from swimming to shore, and many Japanese sailors who abandoned sinking or damaged ships drowned in the currents. Some Korean documents record the number of damaged Japanese warships, which also includes those not sunk but sustaining some amount of damage; however, the condition of the damaged ships is unclear. Having dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese, according to Yi's diary at this point the Japanese dared not approach his fleet, but though he wished to continue the battle the tides were too strong, the wind blew against him, and he was still greatly outnumbered, so decided to withdraw to Dangsa island at nightfall.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: Even after the victory, the Joseon navy was still outnumbered by the remaining Japanese navy, so Admiral Yi withdrew to resupply his fleet and have more space for mobile defense. After hearing the news of the heroic victory, many surviving ships and sailors who had been in hiding after the defeat at Chilcheollyang joined Admiral Yi's fleet. In Yi's report to the court as recorded in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, he was fortunate to gain a small victory after the disaster at Chilcheollyang, with which the Japanese momentum was blunted and they were prevented from entering the Yellow Sea. The victory also enabled the Chinese navy to join Admiral Yi in early 1598. After the destruction of most of the Joseon fleet at Chilcheollyang, the Ming kept their navy stationed at important port cities to guard against possible Japanese naval attacks. The victory at Myeongnyang convinced the Ming government that they could ease security at their major ports and deploy a fleet to the Joseon navy's aid.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: The Japanese navy was heavily damaged (while at least 30 of the Japanese fighting ships were destroyed, the total number of damaged ships, to include those supporting ships that may have sustained damage, was not clearly reported). Kurushima was killed, Tōdō Takatora was wounded and the Japanese suffered extremely heavy casualties, with a captured prisoner reporting half were killed or wounded. The Japanese navy continued with a minor incursion into the western coast of Korea, but soon withdrew to consolidate their holdings along the southern coast. In order to avenge themselves, the Japanese conducted a punitive expedition against Yi's residence of Asan on November 23, 1597 (14th day of the 10th month by the Chinese calendar), burning the village and murdering Yi Myon, Admiral Yi's youngest son.


title: Battle of Myeongnyang

text: There are claims that Yi had iron ropes tightened across the channel between Japanese fleet groups, which severely dampened the Japanese numerical advantage. However, in Yi's war diary no mention is made of such a tactic.


title: Autocunnilingus

text: An unusually high degree of flexibility such as that of a contortionist would be required to perform the act. Unlike the male equivalent, autofellatio, which requires a less extreme frontbend and is known to be achievable by a small fraction of the male population, autocunnilingus has not been reliably documented. It has, however, been reported as a self-destructive fantasy, and occurrences have been reported in non-human primates.


title: Autocunnilingus

text: In "Besorgung", one of his "Venetian Epigrams", Goethe imagined Bettina becoming sufficiently limber to perform autocunnilingus and do without men. Camille Paglia compares the resulting image to William Blake's "engravings of solipsistically contorted figures".


title: Manipura

text: Located above the navel, Manipura translates from Sanskrit as "city of jewels" alternatively translated as "resplendent gem" or "lustrous gem". Manipura is often associated with the colors yellow, blue in classical tantra, and red in the Nath tradition.


title: Manipura

text: Manipura is associated with fire and the power of transformation. It is said to govern digestion and metabolism as the home of Agni and the vital wind Samana Vayu. The energies of Prana Vayu and Apana Vayu (inward and outward flowing energy) meet at the point in a balanced system.


title: Manipura

text: Manipura is the home of the coeliac plexus, which innervates most of the digestive system. In chakra-based medicine, practitioners work this area to promote healthier digestion, elimination, pancreas-kidney and Adrenal function. Weak Agni (fire) in the coeliac plexus leads to incompletely digested food, thoughts and emotions, and is a source of ama (toxicity).


title: Manipura

text: Manipura is represented with a downward-pointing red triangle, signifying the tattva of fire, within a bright yellow circle, with 10 dark-blue or black petals like heavily laden rain clouds.


title: Manipura

text: The fire region is represented by the god Vahni, who is shining red, has four arms, holds a rosary and a spear. Vahni is making the gestures of granting boons, or favors, and dispelling fear. Agni is later referenced as well as Hinduism altered over time.


title: Manipura

text: The seed mantra is the syllable 'ram'. Within the bindu, or dot, above this mantra resides the deity Rudra. He is red or white, with three eyes, of ancient aspect with a silver beard, and is smeared with white ashes. Rudra makes the gestures of granting boons and dispelling fear and is seated either on a tiger skin or a bull.


title: Manipura

text: Rudra's Shakti is the goddess Lakini. She has a black or dark-blue vermilion color; has three faces, each with three eyes; and is four-armed. Lakini holds a thunderbolt, the arrow shot from the bow of Kama, and fire. She makes the gestures of granting boons and dispelling fear. Lakini is seated on a red lotus.


title: Manipura

text: The ten petals of Manipura are dark-blue or black, like heavily laden rain clouds, with the syllables ḍaṁ, ḍhaṁ, ṇaṁ, taṁ, thaṁ, daṁ, dhaṁ, naṁ, paṁ, and phaṁ upon them in a dark-blue color. These petals correspond to the vrittis of spiritual ignorance, thirst, jealousy, treachery, shame, fear, disgust, delusion, foolishness and sadness.


title: Manipura

text: The petals represent the ten Prānas (currents and energy vibrations) that are regulated by the Manipūra Chakra. The five Prāna Vayus are: Prāna, Apāna, Udāna, Samāna And Vyāna. The five Upa Prānas are: Nāga, Kūrma, Devadatta, Krikala and Dhananjaya.


title: Manipura

text: The position of Manipura is stated as being behind the navel. Sometimes a secondary chakra called Surya (sun) chakra is located at the solar plexus, whose role is to absorb and assimilate Prana from the sun. Being related to the sense of sight, it is associated with the eyes, and being associated with movement, it is associated with the feet.


title: Manipura

text: In the endocrine system, Manipura is said to be associated with the pancreas and the outer adrenal glands (the adrenal cortex). These glands create important hormones involved in digestion, converting food into energy for the body, in the same way that Manipura radiates Prana throughout the body.


title: Manipura

text: In Vajrayana traditions, the chakra is triangular, red and has 64 petals or channels that extend upwards. This chakra is important as the seat of the 'red drop'. The short syllable 'Ah' is located inside the 'red drop'.


title: Manipura

text: Meditation on 'Ah' is the key component of the practice of tummo, or inner heat. In tummo, a practitioner's 'subtle winds' are made to enter the central channel, and rise up to its top. This is sometimes compared to 'Raising the kundalini' in Hindu terminology, melting the subtle white drop in the crown, and causing an experience of great bliss. 'Raising the kundalini' is considered the first and most important of the six yogas of Naropa.


title: Manipura

text: this series of doors connect with three Dantians that act as furnaces to convert different energies in the body. The lower Dantian exists in the stomach region. Its function is to convert sexual jing energy into Qi energy (a concept similar to Hindu prana). This is not the location of the lower Dantian.


title: Manipura

text: Within the Sufi Lataif-e-sitta, the torso contains several Lataif. Unlike the chakras, the Lataif are not distributed vertically, instead to the left and the right. The nafs, or lower self, is a centre that is situated below the navel.


title: Manipura

text: Western occultists make different kabbalistic associations with Manipura. For some occultists, it relates to the sephirot of Hod and Netzach.


title: Manipura

text: Hod is the tendency to control and break down energy into different forms, the two forms being contending and balancing forces. This is like the forces of anabolism and catabolism in the human body. Hod and Netzach are associated with the left and right legs and feet of the body.


title: Manipura

text: The Manipuraka chakra is said by the 10th century "Kubjikamatatantra" 11.35 to be at the navel. The "Samgitaratnakara" 2.125-127 agrees it is at the navel, stating that it has 10 petals, containing deep sleep, desire, envy, slander, shame, fear, compassion, stupor, impurity, and anxiety. The breath (prana) that dwells there is named the sun.


title: Manipura

text: Neo-pagan related to Hindu Yogic guided visualization, is the breathing into the solar plexus, holding our breath and focusing our intent, this is to hold our energy and infuse it with our intent, imagining the build up of moving substance through our nose, into a channel down into the solar plexus, then exhaling is moving the energy out into the world.


title: Manipura

text: Balancing the solar plexus may contain self-love, appreciation and/or acceptance. Use occasionally in and between cycles of meditation. "Intent is the most powerful force in the universe.". "... affirmations are simply a statement of intent". The positive affirmations re-empower your solar plexus. Statements with "I am, I can, I will", such as "I am enough", and "I love myself unconditionally". Visualize the yellow solar plexus charging with energy and spinning around with the result of affirmations, and spinning with full power. Its charge is our power, the substance we are also of, using the energy in existence we are creating change in the world. Throwing off negative energies that life collects.


title: Manipura

text: "Our focus, manifestation, ambition, and our critical aspect/ defensiveness come from the Solar Plexus.". When we are out of balance here we may have control issues, hypersensitivity, action imbalances, and issues with our health in the form of anxiety, blockages in digestive system, fear and welling up of negative responses that prevent us from moving beyond built up negative space, rather than to keep us safe its to prevent ourselves from healing in our desire, thought and fear.


title: Manipura

text: Attitudes breathing is the flow of decharging emotions in tense situations. "The tool combines the power of the heart and gut to enable you to shift emotion and physiology right in the middle of a strong reaction". Attitude if its giving us difficulty try choosing the opposite from what you've been feeling; "love and appreciation if you’ve been feeling animosity and resentment".


title: Manipura

text: "Use your notebook to write down unproductive attitudes you know you have and more positive attitudes you wish you had.". Guide yourself with alternative attitudes that you think could help with for example a nemesis in our life that redirect the flow out of our objectivity, let that alternative be with your breath, breath love, breath appreciation, breath compassion or breath excitement (i.e. the most suitable) and feeling (within a few minutes) we will be moving back into coherence (out of noise of anyone's background thought), we will also feel framed in our attitude when sometimes we aren't making that cohesive effort to be. We are guided by our heart when we are more closely feeling and taking the frame of an attitude.


title: Lucy Dahl

text: Lucy Neal Dahl (born 4 August 1965) is a British screenwriter. She is the daughter of British author Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal.


title: Lucy Dahl

text: Dahl wrote the screenplay for "Wild Child" and served as a consultant on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", based on her father's book of the same name. She is also a content contributor to the online food and wine magazine "Zester Daily".


title: Lucy Dahl

text: Dahl has been married twice. She married first, in 1987, Michael Faircloth, with whom she has two daughters, Phoebe Dahl (born 4 November 1988) and Chloe Michaela Dahl (born 12 September 1990). The couple divorced in 1991. Dahl's second marriage was in 2002, to John LaViolette. They divorced in 2016.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada () is an asura king in Hindu mythology. He is known for his staunch devotion towards the preserver deity, Vishnu. He appears in the narrative of Narasimha, the man-lion avatar of Vishnu, who rescues Prahlada by slaying his wicked father, Hiranyakashipu.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada is described as a saintly boy, known for his innocence and bhakti to Vishnu. Despite the abusive nature of his father, Hiranyakashipu, he continues to worship Vishnu. He is considered to be a "mahājana", or great devotee, by followers of Vaishnava traditions. A treatise is accredited to him in the Bhagavata Purana, in which Prahlada describes the process of his loving worship towards Vishnu.


title: Prahlada

text: The majority of stories in the Puranas regarding him are based on the activities of Prahlada as a young boy, and he is usually depicted as such in paintings and illustrations.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada was born to Kayadhu and Hiranyakashipu, an evil daitya king who had been granted a boon that he could not be killed off by anything born from a living womb, neither be killed by a man nor an animal, neither during the day nor at night, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither on land nor in the air nor in water and of no man-made weapon. However, after repeated attempts of filicide by Hiranyakashipu unto Prahlada, Prahlada was finally saved by Narasimha, the fourth avatar of Vishnu, who descended to demonstrate the quality of divine rage and redemption by killing the demon king. The word "Narsimha" is derived from the Sanskrit words "nara", meaning man, and "siṃha", meaning lion. Thus, the preserver god took the form of a part-man, part-lion to kill the asura.


title: Prahlada

text: After the death of his father, Prahlada ascended the asura throne, and ruled peacefully and virtuously. He was known for his generosity and kindness. He sowed similar seeds in his son Virochana, and grandson Mahabali.


title: Prahlada

text: When the ruler of the asuras, Hiraṇyakashipu, was performing a penance in the forest to gain the boon of destroying Vishnu, the devas attacked the asura realm. A great battle ensued, in which the devas were defeated. While fleeing, Indra abducted the pregnant Kayādhū, the wife of Hiranyakashipu, as a spoil of war. Narada listened to the wails of the poor woman, and got her released from Indra’s captivity. She stayed in the ashrama of the divine sage in gratitude. Prahlada — while being inside his mother's womb — listened to Narada's chants of devotion towards Narayana. He was taught by Narada during his early childhood. As a result, he grew devoted to Vishnu. His father was antagonised by his spiritual inclination, and tried to warn Prahlada against offending him, since he had greatly desired to turn his son against Vishnu in particular. Despite several warnings from his father Hiranyakashipu, Prahlada continued to worship Vishnu instead of the former. The child is successful in converting other students of the asura clan into Vaishnavism by teaching them the Narayana mantra. His father then decided to commit filicide and poisoned Prahlada, but he survived. When the daitya soldiers attacked their prince with weapons, Prahlada informed them that their efforts were futile, since Vishnu resided within them. The asura monarch then had the boy trampled by the "aṣṭadiggajas", the eight elephants who bear the weight of the earth, but their tusks were broken to bits upon contact with him. He placed Prahlada in a room with venomous, dark snakes, and they made a bed for him with their bodies.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahalada was then thrown from a valley into a river, but was saved by Bhudevi, the consort of Vishnu. Holika, the sister of Hiranyakashipu, was blessed in that she could not be hurt by fire. Hiranyakashipu put Prahlada on the lap of Holika as she sat on a pyre. Prahlada prayed to Vishnu to keep him safe. Holika burnt to death, even as Prahlada was left unscathed. This event is celebrated as the Hindu festival of Holi.


title: Prahlada

text: The asura Shambara and Vayu were tasked to slay the prince, but both of them were driven away by Vishnu. The boy was entrusted to Shukra, who educated him regarding his duties, the sciences, and justice, and was returned to his father after he was deemed to have become humble. The asura king once again broached the topic of God with his son, only to discover that the latter had never wavered in his faith. Finally, the wicked daitya commanded all the daityas and the danavas to collect all the mountains of the earth to construct a barrier over the boy in the ocean, so that his son would be submerged for a millennium. Even though they spread over him for a thousand miles, Prahlada, bound hand and foot, prayed to Vishnu, who granted him a number of boons, and returned to prostrate before his father, who was left bewildered.


title: Prahlada

text: After tolerating repeated abuse from Hiranyakashipu, Prahlada is eventually saved by Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a man-lion, emerges from within a stone pillar, who places the king on his thighs, and kills him with his sharp nails at the threshold to his home at dusk, thus nullifying all of Hiranyakashipu's boon of virtual immortality.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada eventually becomes the king of the daityas, and attains a place in the abode of Vishnu (Vaikuntha) after his death.


title: Prahlada

text: In the Bhagavad Gita (10.30) Krishna makes the following statement in regard to Prahlada, showing his favour towards him:


title: Prahlada

text: Translation: "Among the Daityas, I am the great devotee Prahlada and of calculators, I am Time; among quadrupeds, I am the lion; and among birds, I am Garuda."


title: Prahlada

text: In the Vishnu Purana, the sage Parasara ends narrating the tale of Prahlada to Maitreya with the following proclamation:


title: Prahlada

text: Because of his steadfast devotion towards Vishnu as well as under the teachings of Shukracharya, Prahlada became the mighty King of the Asuras. Prahlada was even more powerful than his father, Hiranyakashipu ever was. He enjoyed the love and respect of his subjects. Without lifting a single weapon, and by virtue of his good behaviour, Prahlada conquered the three worlds easily, and Indra ran away from Svarga. In the disguise of a Brahmin, Indra sought an audience with the asura king and asked him to teach him about Sanatana Dharma. Pleased with this pupil, he offered him a boon, and Indra sought the king's virtue, and hence robbed Prahlada of his dharma as well.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada once commanded the asuras to accompany him to the holy tirtha of Naimiṣa, where he hoped to see a vision of Vishnu. They went hunting along the banks of the Sarasvati river. Prahlada observed two ascetics with matted hair, bearing the bows of Sharanga and Ajagava. The asura king asked them why they held weapons while performing a penance, and the two ascetics responded that all those who held power were righteous in their conduct. One of the rishis assured the king that none in the three worlds could conquer them in a duel. Prahlada rose to the challenge. Nara fired arrows upon the king with his Ajagava, but the latter was able to defeat him with his own gold-plated arrows. Prahlada employed the divine Brahmastra against Nara's Narayanastra. Seeing them neutralised in a mid-air collision, Prahlada wielded his mace against Narayana. His mace broke, and Prahlada found himself growing helpless, and sought Vishnu's assistance. Vishnu told his devotee that the Nara-Narayana brothers were invincible as they were the sons of Yama, and could only be conquered in devotion rather than combat. The king left the regency to Andhaka and erected an ashrama to propitiate Nara-Narayana and apologise for his folly.


title: Prahlada

text: According to the Kurma Purana, Prahlada always served thousands of Brahmins daily. One day, Prahlada forgot to serve one Brahmin inadvertently. The latter cursed the asura that he would forget Vishnu and become unrighteous. The curse soon came into fruition, with Prahlada ignoring the Vedas and the Brahmins, and was soon deviating from the path of dharma. Determined to avenge his father's death, he waged war against Vishnu. When he was defeated, he realised his folly and abdicated his throne, allowing Andhaka to reign as king.


title: Prahlada

text: According to the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Prahlada was compelled to wage war against Indra and the devas by the daityas. In the fierce devasura war that ensued, Prahlada emerged as the victor. Fearing that the asura king would destroy the devas, Indra prayed to Mahadevi, and Prahlada responded in kind. Pleased, the goddess pacificed both of them and they returned to their abodes.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada, Virochana, Bali, and Bana fought against Shiva and the devas when Andhaka attacked Kailasha. Prahlada had strongly advised Andhaka against the invasion, but Andhaka refused. Andhaka was eventually defeated by Shiva, and Prahlada once more became King of the Asuras.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada was present during the churning of the ocean and also fought in the Tarakamaya War against the devas.


title: Prahlada

text: Prahlada's son was Virochana, who was the father of Bali. The devas had Virochana killed by taking advantage of his generosity. Prahlada raised his grandson, Bali. Later on, Prahlada and Bali lived on Sutala Loka under the instructions of Vishnu.


title: Prahlada

text: It was Prahlada who asked Shukracharya to acquire the Mritasanjivani mantra from Shiva, to save the asuras from the devas.


title: Prahlada

text: After a long life, Prahlada attained Vaikuntha. Prahlada's great-grandson was the thousand-armed Banasura, who was humbled in battle by Krishna.


title: Prahlada

text: The following sites in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh in India, are associated with Prahlāda or Narasiṁha as places of pilgrimage:


title: Prahlada

text: The "Prahallada Nataka" (also spelled as Prahlada-Naṭaka), a folk dance-theatre from Ganjam, Odisha enacts the story of Narasimha and Hiranyakashipu. This art form dates back to the 18th century when the Rāmakruṣṇa Chhoṭarāya, the erstwhile king of the Jalantara state wrote the text and the songs of the drama and started it.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The 1997 Survivor Series was the 11th annual Survivor Series professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was presented by Milton Bradley's Karate Fighters. The event took place on November 9, 1997, at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The tagline "Gang Rulz" refers to the various wrestling stables that feuded with each other heading into this event. Seven matches were contested on the event's card.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The main event was a standard wrestling match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, in which Bret Hart defended the title against Shawn Michaels. It was the last of three WWF World Heavyweight Championship matches between the two, who had previously headlined the 1992 Survivor Series and WrestleMania XII together. Michaels won the title in controversial fashion when Vince McMahon ordered match referee Earl Hebner to end the match as Michaels held Hart in Hart's own finishing maneuver, the Sharpshooter, even though Hart had not submitted. This incident became known as the Montreal Screwjob and marked Hart's last appearance on WWE programming until 2006. This was also the last time that Hart held a title in WWE until May 2010, and the last time he headlined a WWE pay-per-view until SummerSlam 2010. According to WWE, the Montreal Screwjob, which took place at the end of the last match on the card, is considered the beginning of the Attitude Era. A video package aired immediately before the Hart vs. Michaels match, featuring the first use of the "WWF ATTITUDE" scratch logo.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The undercard featured Stone Cold Steve Austin versus Owen Hart in a standard wrestling match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship, Kane versus Mankind, and four 4-on-4 elimination tag team matches.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: Survivor Series is an annual gimmick pay-per-view (PPV), produced every November by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1987. In what has become the second longest running pay-per-view event in history (behind WWE's WrestleMania), it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with King of the Ring. The event is traditionally characterized by having Survivor Series matches, which are tag team elimination matches that typically pits teams of four or five wrestlers against each other. The 1997 event was the 11th event in the Survivor Series chronology and was scheduled to be held on November 9, 1997, at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: Survivor Series consisted of professional wrestling matches involving wrestlers from pre-existing feuds and storylines that played out on "Raw is War" — WWF's primary television program. Wrestlers portrayed a hero or a villain as they followed a series of events that built tension, and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The Storyline feud between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels began after Michaels became the number one contender to the WWF Championship by defeating The Undertaker in the first Hell in a Cell match at . On the following nights episode of "Raw is War", while Michaels, alongside his friend Hunter Hearst Helmsley were blurting out insults to Vince McMahon by the announce table, Hart alongside members of The Hart Foundation appeared with Hart calling Michaels nothing more than a degenerate before challenging Triple H to a match later that night. Hart later lost to Helmsley by count out after Michaels hit him with Sweet Chin Music while he was blocking an attack by Helmsley's bodyguard Chyna.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the first match, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and The Godwinns (Survivors: Dogg and Gunn) won in 15:26, after Gunn hit a top rope leg drop.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the second match, The Truth Commission (Sole Survivor: The Interrogator) won in 9:56, after Interrogator defeated Crush.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the third match, Team Canada (Sole Survivor: British Bulldog) won in 17:47, after Bulldog hit Vader with the ring bell.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the fifth match, Ahmed Johnson, Ken Shamrock and LOD (Sole Survivor: Ken Shamrock) won in 20:33, after Shamrock made Rocky Maivia tap out to the Ankle Lock.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the sixth match, Steve Austin won in 4:02 and became the new WWF Intercontinental Champion, after hitting Owen Hart with the stunner.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: Immediately after the Steve Austin vs. Owen Hart match and before the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels match, a video package was aired featuring promos from Ahmed Johnson, The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Faarooq, Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels discussing their athletic backgrounds and injuries suffered, ending with Bret Hart saying "Try lacing my boots," and finally with the first use of the "WWF ATTITUDE" scratch logo displayed on the screen.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In the main event, Shawn Michaels won in 12:19 and became the new WWF Champion, after Michaels locked Bret Hart into the sharpshooter. Even though Hart had not submitted, Michaels was declared the winner, as Earl Hebner, on direct orders from McMahon, called for the bell.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: In 2015, Kevin Pantoja of 411Mania gave the event a rating of 6.0 [Average], stating, "Shortly after the WWE Network launched, I watched this show and disliked it. Looking at it now, it’s pretty good. The Survivor Series matches, except for the DOA one, are all relatively fun. It also gets the score bumped up a bit more due to the historical value here. The main event, while not classic, kind of has to be seen by any and every wrestling fan."


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The controversial ending surrounding Shawn Michaels defeating Bret Hart by submission and winning the WWF Championship due to Vince McMahon ordering the referee Earl Hebner to ring the bell without Hart submitting became known as the Montreal Screwjob. Hart left the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) immediately after the incident and moved to World Championship Wrestling (WCW), where he became a two-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, a four-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion and one half of the WCW World Tag Team Champions before retiring in 2000 after a severe concussion. Hart next appeared in the WWF (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE) in 2010 when he and Michaels called a truce and buried the hatchet on the Montreal Screwjob, having been inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame four years prior.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: After Survivor Series, Shawn Michaels began his third reign as WWF Champion. He entered a feud with Ken Shamrock over the WWF Championship which culminated at where Michaels retained the title after Shamrock won by disqualification after being attacked by D-Generation X members Triple H and Chyna. Michaels lost the WWF Championship to Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania XIV before a four-year hiatus after a back injury during a casket match against The Undertaker at the 1998 Royal Rumble. He returned at SummerSlam (2002).


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: After winning the Intercontinental Championship, Stone Cold Steve Austin entered into a feud with The Rock over the title after The Rock stole Austin's title belt after a beat down from The Nation of Domination on the November 17 episode of Raw is War. Austin retained the Intercontinental Championship and regained the belt by defeating The Rock at D-Generation X: In Your House. Austin forfeited the title to The Rock the next night on Raw is War with the sole intention of going after the WWF World Heavyweight Championship before hitting The Rock with a Stone Cold Stunner.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: Vince McMahon's actions of screwing Bret Hart from the WWF Championship marked the beginning of the Mr. McMahon character, the tyrannical CEO of WWF. In 1998, McMahon began a legendary rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin.


title: Survivor Series (1997)

text: The events of the Montreal Screwjob repeated at the following year's Survivor Series, albeit worked, when The Rock locked Mankind in the Sharpshooter before Mr. McMahon ordered the referee to call for the bell, "screwing" Mankind and awarding the then-vacant WWF Championship to The Rock.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Recent human evolution refers to evolutionary adaptation, sexual and natural selection, and genetic drift within "Homo sapiens" populations, since their separation and dispersal in the Middle Paleolithic about 50,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, not only are humans still evolving, their evolution since the dawn of agriculture is faster than ever before. It has been proposed that human culture acts as a selective force in human evolution and has accelerated it; however, this is disputed. With a sufficiently large data set and modern research methods, scientists can study the changes in the frequency of an allele occurring in a tiny subset of the population over a single lifetime, the shortest meaningful time scale in evolution. Comparing a given gene with that of other species enables geneticists to determine whether it is rapidly evolving in humans alone. For example, while human DNA is on average 98% identical to chimp DNA, the so-called Human Accelerated Region 1 (HAR1), involved in the development of the brain, is only 85% similar.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Following the peopling of Africa some 130,000 years ago, and the recent Out-of-Africa expansion some 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, some sub-populations of "Homo sapiens" have been geographically isolated for tens of thousands of years prior to the early modern Age of Discovery. Combined with archaic admixture, this has resulted in significant genetic variation. Selection pressures were especially severe for populations affected by the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Eurasia, and for sedentary farming populations since the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP, pronounced 'snip'), or mutations of a single genetic code "letter" in an allele that spread across a population, in functional parts of the genome can potentially modify virtually any conceivable trait, from height and eye color to susceptibility to diabetes and schizophrenia. Approximately 2% of the human genome codes for proteins and a slightly larger fraction is involved in gene regulation. But most of the rest of the genome has no known function. If the environment remains stable, the beneficial mutations will spread throughout the local population over many generations until it becomes a dominant trait. An extremely beneficial allele could become ubiquitous in a population in as little as a few centuries whereas those that are less advantageous typically take millennia.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Human traits that emerged recently include the ability to free-dive for long periods of time, adaptations for living in high altitudes where oxygen concentrations are low, resistance to contagious diseases (such as malaria), light skin, blue eyes, lactase persistence (or the ability to digest milk after weaning), lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, retention of the median artery, reduced prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, lower susceptibility to diabetes, genetic longevity, shrinking brain sizes, and changes in the timing of menarche and menopause.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Genetic evidence suggests that a species dubbed "Homo heidelbergensis" is the last common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and "Homo sapiens". This common ancestor lived between 600,000 and 750,000 years ago, likely in either Europe or Africa. Members of this species migrated throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and became the Neanderthals in Western Asia and Europe while another group moved further east and evolved into the Denisovans, named after the Denisova Cave in Russia where the first known fossils of them were discovered. In Africa, members of this group eventually became anatomically modern humans. Migrations and geographical isolation notwithstanding, the three descendant groups of "Homo heidelbergensis" later met and interbred.


title: Recent human evolution

text: DNA analysis reveals that modern-day Tibetans, Melanesians, and Australian Aboriginals carry about 3–5% of Denisovan DNA. In addition, DNA analysis of Indonesians and Papua New Guineans indicates that "Homo sapiens" and Denisovans interbred as recently as between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Archaeological research suggests that as prehistoric humans swept across Europe 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals went extinct. Even so, there is evidence of interbreeding between the two groups as humans expanded their presence in the continent. While prehistoric humans carried 3–6% Neanderthal DNA, modern humans have only about 2%. This seems to suggest selection against Neanderthal-derived traits. For example, the neighborhood of the gene FOXP2, affecting speech and language, shows no signs of Neanderthal inheritance whatsoever.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Introgression of genetic variants acquired by Neanderthal admixture has different distributions in Europeans and East Asians, pointing to differences in selective pressures. Though East Asians inherit more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans, East Asians, South Asians, Australo-Melanesians, Native Americans, and Europeans all share Neanderthal DNA, so hybridization likely occurred between Neanderthals and their common ancestors coming out of Africa. Their differences also suggest separate hybridization events for the ancestors of East Asians and other Eurasians.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Following the genome sequencing of three Vindija Neanderthals, a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome was published and revealed that Neanderthals shared more alleles with Eurasian populations—such as French, Han Chinese, and Papua New Guinean—than with sub-Saharan African populations, such as Yoruba and San. According to the authors of the study, the observed excess of genetic similarity is best explained by recent gene flow from Neanderthals to modern humans after the migration out of Africa. But gene flow did not go one way. The fact that some of the ancestors of modern humans in Europe migrated back into Africa means that modern Africans also carry some genetic materials from Neanderthals. In particular, Africans share 7.2% Neanderthal DNA with Europeans but only 2% with East Asians.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Some climatic adaptations, such as high-altitude adaptation in humans, are thought to have been acquired by archaic admixture. An ethnic group known as the Sherpas from Nepal is believed to have inherited an allele called EPAS1, which allows them to breathe easily at high altitudes, from the Denisovans. A 2014 study reported that Neanderthal-derived variants found in East Asian populations showed clustering in functional groups related to immune and haematopoietic pathways, while European populations showed clustering in functional groups related to the lipid catabolic process. A 2017 study found correlation of Neanderthal admixture in modern European populations with traits such as skin tone, hair color, height, sleeping patterns, mood and smoking addiction. A 2020 study of Africans unveiled Neanderthal haplotypes, or alleles that tend to be inherited together, linked to immunity and ultraviolet sensitivity.


title: Recent human evolution

text: The gene microcephalin ("MCPH1"), involved in the development of the brain, likely originated from a "Homo" lineage separate from that of anatomically modern humans, but was introduced to them around 37,000 years ago, and has become much more common ever since, reaching around 70% of the human population at present. Neanderthals were suggested as one possible origin of this gene.


title: Recent human evolution

text: But later studies did not find this gene in the Neanderthal genome nor has it been found to be associated with cognitive ability in modern people.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A study concluded only 1.5–7% of "regions" of the modern human genome to be specific to modern humans. These regions have neither been altered by archaic hominin DNA due to admixture (only a small portion of archaic DNA is inherited per individual but a large portion is inherited across populations overall) nor are shared with Neanderthals or Denisovans in any of the genomes of the used datasets. They also found two bursts of changes specific to modern human genomes which involve genes related to brain development and function.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin was the first to propose the out-of-Africa hypothesis for the peopling of the world, but the story of prehistoric human migration is now understood to be much more complex thanks to twenty-first-century advances in genomic sequencing. There were multiple waves of dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa, with the most recent one dating back to 70,000 to 50,000 years ago. Earlier waves of human migrants might have gone extinct or decided to return to Africa. Moreover, a combination of gene flow from Eurasia back into Africa and higher rates of genetic drift among East Asians compared to Europeans led these human populations to diverge from one another at different times.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Around 65,000 to 50,000 years ago, a variety of new technologies, such as projectile weapons, fish hooks, porcelain, and sewing needles, made their appearance. Bird-bone flutes were invented 30,000 to 35,000 years ago, indicating the arrival of music. Artistic creativity also flowered, as can be seen with Venus figurines and cave paintings. Cave paintings of not just actual animals but also imaginary creatures that could reliably be attributed to "Homo sapiens" have been found in different parts of the world. Radioactive dating suggests that the oldest of the ones that have been found, as of 2019, are 44,000 years old. For researchers, these artworks and inventions represent a milestone in the evolution of human intelligence, the roots of story-telling, paving the way for spirituality and religion. Experts believe this sudden "great leap forward"—as anthropologist Jared Diamond calls it—was due to climate change. Around 60,000 years ago, during the middle of an ice age, it was extremely cold in the far north, but ice sheets sucked up much of the moisture in Africa, making the continent even drier and droughts much more common. The result was a genetic bottleneck, pushing "Homo sapiens" to the brink of extinction, and a mass exodus from Africa. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain (as of 2003) whether or not this was due to some favorable genetic mutations, for example in the FOXP2 gene, linked to language and speech. A combination of archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that humans migrated along Southern Asia and down to Australia 50,000 years ago, to the Middle East and then to Europe 35,000 years ago, and finally to the Americas via the Siberian Arctic 15,000 years ago.


title: Recent human evolution

text: DNA analyses conducted since 2007 revealed the acceleration of evolution with regards to defenses against disease, skin color, nose shapes, hair color and type, and body shape since about 40,000 years ago, continuing a trend of active selection since humans emigrated from Africa 100,000 years ago. Humans living in colder climates tend to be more heavily built compared to those in warmer climates because having a smaller surface area compared to volume makes it easier to retain heat. People from warmer climates tend to have thicker lips, which have large surface areas, enabling them to keep cool. With regards to nose shapes, humans residing in hot and dry places tend to have narrow and protruding noses in order to reduce loss of moisture. Humans living in hot and humid places tend to have flat and broad noses that moisturize inhaled air and retain moisture from exhaled air. Humans dwelling in cold and dry places tend to have small, narrow, and long noses in order to warm and moisturize inhaled air. As for hair types, humans from regions with colder climates tend to have straight hair so that the head and neck are kept warm. Straight hair also allows cool moisture to quickly fall off the head. On the other hand, tight and curly hair increases the exposed areas of the scalp, easing the evaporation of sweat and allowing heat to be radiated away while keeping itself off the neck and shoulders. Epicanthic eye folds are believed to be an adaptation protecting the eye from overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, and is presumed to be a particular trait in archaic humans from eastern and southeast Asia. A cold-adaptive explanation for the epicanthic fold is today seen as outdated by some, as epicanthic folds appear in some African populations. Dr. Frank Poirier, a physical anthropologist at Ohio State University, concluded that the epicanthic fold in fact may be an adaptation for tropical regions, and was already part of the natural diversity found among early modern humans.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Physiological or phenotypical changes have been traced to Upper Paleolithic mutations, such as the East Asian variant of the EDAR gene, dated to about 35,000 years ago in Southern or Central China. Traits affected by the mutation are sweat glands, teeth, hair thickness and breast tissue. While Africans and Europeans carry the ancestral version of the gene, most East Asians have the mutated version. By testing the gene on mice, Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti and their colleagues at the Broad Institute found that the mutated version brings thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, and less breast tissue. East Asian women are known for having comparatively small breasts and East Asians in general tend to have thick hair. The research team calculated that this gene originated in Southern China, which was warm and humid, meaning having more sweat glands would be advantageous to the hunter-gatherers who lived there.


title: Recent human evolution

text: The most recent Ice Age peaked in intensity between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago and ended about 12,000 years ago. As the glaciers that once covered Scandinavia all the way down to Northern France retreated, humans began returning to Northern Europe from the Southwest, modern-day Spain. But about 14,000 years ago, humans from Southeastern Europe, especially Greece and Turkey, began migrating to the rest of the continent, displacing the first group of humans. Analysis of genomic data revealed that all Europeans since 37,000 years ago have descended from a single founding population that survived the Ice Age, with specimens found in various parts of the continent, such as Belgium. Although this human population got displaced 33,000 years ago, a genetically related group began spreading across Europe 19,000 years ago. Recent divergence of Eurasian lineages was sped up significantly during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Mesolithic and the Neolithic, due to increased selection pressures and founder effects associated with migration. Alleles predictive of light skin have been found in Neanderthals, but the alleles for light skin in Europeans and East Asians, KITLG and ASIP, are (as of 2012) thought to have not been acquired by archaic admixture but recent mutations since the LGM. Hair, eye, and skin pigmentation phenotypes associated with the humans of European descent of Western Eurasian stock emerge during the LGM, from about 19,000 years ago. The associated TYRP1 SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 alleles emerge around 19,000 years ago, still during the LGM, most likely in the Caucasus. Within the last 20,000 years or so, light skin has been favored by natural selection in East Asia, Europe, and North America. At the same time, Southern Africans tend to have lighter skin than their equatorial counterparts. In general, people living in higher latitudes tend to have lighter skin. The HERC2 variation for blue eyes first appears around 14,000 years ago in Italy and the Caucasus.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Inuit adaptation to high-fat diet and cold climate has been traced to a mutation dated the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000 years ago). Average cranial capacity among modern male human populations varies in the range of 1,200 to 1,450 cm. Larger cranial volumes are associated with cooler climatic regions, with the largest averages being found in populations of Siberia and the Arctic. Humans living in Northern Asia and the Arctic have evolved the ability to develop thick layers of fat on their faces to keep warm. Moreover, the Inuit tend to have flat and broad faces, an adaptation that reduces the likelihood of frostbites. Both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnons had somewhat larger cranial volumes on average than modern Europeans, suggesting the relaxation of selection pressures for larger brain volume after the end of the LGM.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Australian Aboriginals living in the Central Desert, where the temperature can drop below freezing at night, have evolved the ability to reduce their core temperatures without shivering.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Early fossils of "Homo sapiens" suggest that members of this species had vastly different brains 300,000 years ago compared to today. In particular, they were elongated rather than globular in shape. Only fossils from 35,000 years ago or less share the same basic brain shape as that of current humans. Human brains appear to be shrinking over the last twenty thousand years. Modern human brains are about 10% smaller than those of the Cro-Magnons, who lived in Europe twenty to thirty thousand years ago. That is a difference comparable to a tennis ball. Scientists are not so sure about the implications of this finding. On one hand, it could be that humans are becoming less and less intelligent as their societies become ever more complex, which makes it easier for them to survive. On the other hand, shrinking brain sizes could be associated with lower levels of aggression. In any case, evidence for the shrinking human brain can be observed in Africa, China, and Europe.


title: Recent human evolution

text: The advent of agriculture has played a key role in the evolutionary history of humanity. Early farming communities benefited from new and comparatively stable sources of food, but were also exposed to new and initially devastating diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, and smallpox. Eventually, genetic resistance to such diseases evolved and humans living today are descendants of those who survived the agricultural revolution and reproduced. The pioneers of agriculture faced tooth cavities, protein deficiency and more generally malnutrition, resulting in shorter statures. Diseases are one of the strongest forces of evolution acting on "Homo sapiens". As this species migrated throughout Africa and began colonizing new lands outside the continent around 100,000 years ago, they came into contact with and helped spread a variety of pathogens with deadly consequences. In addition, the dawn of agriculture led to the rise of major disease outbreaks. Malaria is the oldest known of human contagions, traced to West Africa around 100,000 years ago, before humans began migrating out of the continent. Malarial infections surged around 10,000 years ago, raising the selective pressures upon the affected populations, leading to the evolution of resistance.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A study by anthropologists John Hawks, Henry Harpending, Gregory Cochran, and colleagues suggests that human evolution has sped up significantly since the beginning of the Holocene, at an estimated pace of around 100 times faster than during the Paleolithic, primarily in the farming populations of Eurasia. Thus, humans living in the twenty-first century are more different from their ancestors of 5,000 years ago than their ancestors from that era were to the Neanderthals who went extinct around 30,000 years ago. They tied this effect to new selection pressures arising from new diets, new modes of habitation, and immunological pressures related to the domestication of animals. For example, populations that cultivate rice, wheat, and other grains have gained the ability to digest starch thanks to an enzyme called amylase, found in saliva. In addition, having a larger population means having more mutations, the raw material on which natural selection acts.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Hawks and colleagues scanned data from the International HapMap Project of Africans, Asians, and Europeans for SNPs and found evidence of evolution speeding up in 1800 genes, or 7% of the human genome. They also discovered that human populations in Africa, Asia, and Europe were evolving along divergent paths, becoming ever more different, and that there was very little gene flow among them. Most of the new traits are unique to their continent of origin.


title: Recent human evolution

text: As Europeans and East Asians migrated out of Africa, those groups were maladapted and came under stronger selective pressures.


title: Recent human evolution

text: John Hawks reported evidence of recent evolution in the human brain within the last 5,000 years or so. Measurements of the skull suggests that the human brain has shrunk by about 150 cubic centimeters, or roughly ten percent. This is likely due to the growing specialization in modern societies centered around agriculture rather than hunting and gathering. More broadly, human brain sizes have been diminishing since at least 100,000 years ago, though the change was most significant within the last 12,000 years. 100,000 years ago, the average brain size was about 1,500 cubic centimeters, compared to around 1,450 cubic centimeters 12,000 years ago and 1,350 today.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Examples for adaptations related to agriculture and animal domestication include East Asian types of ADH1B associated with rice domestication, and lactase persistence.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Around 11,000 years ago, as agriculture was replacing hunting and gathering in the Middle East, people invented ways to reduce the concentrations of lactose in milk by fermenting it to make yogurt and cheese. People lost the ability to digest lactose as they matured and as such lost the ability to consume milk. Thousands of years later, a genetic mutation enabled people living in Europe at the time to continue producing lactase, an enzyme that digests lactose, throughout their lives, allowing them to drink milk after weaning and survive bad harvests.


title: Recent human evolution

text: These two key developments paved the way for communities of farmers and herders to rapidly displace the hunter-gatherers who once prevailed across Europe. Today, lactase persistence can be found in 90% or more of the populations in Northwestern and Northern Central Europe, and in pockets of Western and Southeastern Africa, Saudi Arabia, and South Asia. It is not as common in Southern Europe (40%) because Neolithic farmers had already settled there before the mutation existed. On the other hand, it is rather rare in inland Southeast Asia and Southern Africa. While all Europeans with lactase persistence share a common ancestor for this ability, pockets of lactase persistence outside Europe are likely due to separate mutations. The European mutation, called the LP allele, is traced to modern-day Hungary, 7,500 years ago. In the twenty-first century, about 35% of the human population is capable of digesting lactose after the age of seven or eight. Milk-drinking humans could produce offspring up to 19% more fertile than those without the ability, putting the mutation among those under the strongest selection known. As an example of gene-culture co-evolution, communities with lactase persistence and dairy farming took over Europe in several hundred generations, or thousands of years. This raises a chicken-and-egg type of question: which came first, dairy farming or lactase persistence? To answer this question, population geneticists examined DNA samples extracted from skeletons found in archeological sites in Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania dating from between 3,800 and 6,000 years ago. They did not find any evidence of the LP allele. Hence, Europeans began dairy farming before they gained the ability to drink milk after early childhood.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A Finnish research team reported that the European mutation that allows for lactase persistence is not found among the milk-drinking and dairy-farming Africans, however. Sarah Tishkoff and her students confirmed this by analyzing DNA samples from Tanzania, Kenya, and Sudan, where lactase persistence evolved independently. The uniformity of the mutations surrounding the lactase gene suggests that lactase persistence spread rapidly throughout this part of Africa. According to Tishkoff's data, this mutation first appeared between 3,000 and 7,000 years ago, and has been strongly favored by natural selection, more strongly than even resistance to malaria, in fact. In this part of the world, it provides some protection against drought and enables people to drink milk without diarrhea, which causes dehydration.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Lactase persistence is a rare ability among mammals. It is also a clear and simple example of convergent evolution in humans because it involves a single gene. Other examples of convergent evolution, such as the light skin of Europeans and East Asians or the various means of resistance to malaria, are much more complicated.


title: Recent human evolution

text: The shift towards settled communities based on farming was a significant cultural change, which in turn may have accelerated human evolution. Agriculture brought about an abundance of cereals, enabling women to wean their babies earlier and have more children over shorter periods of time. Despite the vulnerability of densely populated communities to diseases, this led to a population explosion and thus more genetic variation, the raw material on which natural selection acts. Diets in early agricultural communities were deficient in many nutrients, including vitamin D. This could be one reason why natural selection has favored light skin among Europeans, as it increases UV absorption and synthesis of vitamin D.


title: Recent human evolution

text: The light skin pigmentation characteristic of modern Europeans is estimated to have spread across Europe in a "selective sweep" during the Mesolithic (5,000 years ago). Signals for selection in favor of light skin among Europeans was one of the most pronounced, comparable to those for resistance to malaria or lactose tolerance.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Eumelanin, which is responsible for pigmentation in human skin, protects against ultraviolet radiation while also limiting vitamin D synthesis. Variations in skin color, due to the levels of melanin, are caused by at least 25 different genes, and variations evolved independently of each other to meet different environmental needs. Over the millennia, human skin colors have evolved to be well-suited to their local environments. Having too much melanin can lead to vitamin D deficiency and bone deformities while having too little makes the person more vulnerable to skin cancer.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Blue eyes are an adaptation for living in regions where the amounts of light are limited because they allow more light to come in than brown eyes. They also seem have undergone both sexual and frequency-dependent selection. A research program by geneticist Hans Eiberg and his team at the University of Copenhagen from the 1990s to 2000s investigating the origins of blue eyes revealed that a mutation in the gene OCA2 is responsible for this trait. According to them, all humans initially had brown eyes and the OCA2 mutation took place between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. It dilutes the production of melanin, responsible for the pigmentation of human hair, eye, and skin color. The mutation does not completely switch off melanin production, however, as that would leave the individual with a condition known as albinism. Variations in eye color from brown to green can be explained via the variation in the amounts of melanin produced in the iris. While brown-eyed individuals share a large area in their DNA controlling melanin production, blue-eyed individuals have only a small region. By examining mitochondrial DNA of people from multiple countries, Eiberg and his team concluded blue-eyed individuals all share a common ancestor.


title: Recent human evolution

text: In 2018, an international team of researchers from Israel and the United States announced their genetic analysis of 6,500-year-old excavated human remains in Israel's Upper Galilee region revealed a number of traits not found in the humans who had previously inhabited the area, including blue eyes. They concluded that the region experienced a significant demographic shift 6,000 years ago due to migration from Anatolia and the Zagros mountains (in modern-day Turkey and Iran) and that this change contributed to the development of the Chalcolithic culture in the region.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Resistance to malaria is a well-known example of recent human evolution. This disease attacks humans early in life. Thus humans who are resistant enjoy a higher chance of surviving and reproducing. While humans have evolved multiple defenses against malaria, sickle cell anemia—a condition in which red blood cells are deformed into sickle shapes, thereby restricting blood flow—is perhaps the best known. Sickle cell anemia makes it more difficult for the malarial parasite to infect red blood cells. This mechanism of defense against malaria emerged independently in Africa and in Pakistan and India. Within 4,000 years it has spread to 10–15% of the populations of these places. Another mutation that enabled humans to resist malaria that is strongly favored by natural selection and has spread rapidly in Africa is the inability to synthesize the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, or G6PD.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A combination of poor sanitation and high population densities proved ideal for the spread of contagious diseases which was deadly for the residents of ancient cities. Evolutionary thinking would suggest that people living in places with long-standing urbanization dating back millennia would have evolved resistance to certain diseases, such as tuberculosis and leprosy. Using DNA analysis and archeological findings, scientists from the University College London and the Royal Holloway studied samples from 17 sites in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They learned that, indeed, long-term exposure to pathogens has led to resistance spreading across urban populations. Urbanization is therefore a selective force that has influenced human evolution. The allele in question is named SLC11A1 1729+55del4. Scientists found that among the residents of places that have been settled for thousands of years, such as Susa in Iran, this allele is ubiquitous whereas in places with just a few centuries of urbanization, such as Yakutsk in Siberia, only 70–80% of the population have it.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Adaptations have also been found in modern populations living in extreme climatic conditions such as the Arctic, as well as immunological adaptations such as resistance against prion caused brain disease in populations practicing mortuary cannibalism, or the consumption of human corpses. Inuit have the ability to thrive on the lipid-rich diets consisting of Arctic mammals. Human populations living in regions of high altitudes, such as the Tibetan Plateau, Ethiopia, and the Andes benefit from a mutation that enhances the concentration of oxygen in their blood. This is achieved by having more capillaries, increasing their capacity for carrying oxygen. This mutation is believed to be around 3,000 years old.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A recent adaptation has been proposed for the Austronesian Sama-Bajau, also known as the Sea Gypsies or Sea Nomads, developed under selection pressures associated with subsisting on free-diving over the past thousand years or so. As maritime hunter-gatherers, the ability to dive for long periods of times plays a crucial role in their survival. Due to the mammalian dive reflex, the spleen contracts when the mammal dives and releases oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Over time, individuals with larger spleens were more likely to survive and thrive because free-diving can actually be quite dangerous. By contrast, communities centered around farming show no signs of evolving to have larger spleens. Because the Sama-Bajau show no interest in abandoning this lifestyle, there is no reason to believe further adaptation will not occur.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Advances in the biology of genomes have enabled geneticists to investigate the course of human evolution within centuries. Jonathan Pritchard and a postdoctoral fellow, Yair Field, counted the singletons, or changes of single DNA bases, which are likely to be recent because they are rare and have not spread throughout the population. Since alleles bring neighboring DNA regions with them as they move around the genome, the number of singletons can be used to roughly estimate how quickly the allele has changed its frequency. This approach can unveil evolution within the last 2,000 years or a hundred human generations. Armed with this technique and data from the UK10K project, Pritchard and his team found that alleles for lactase persistence, blond hair, and blue eyes have spread rapidly among Britons within the last two millennia or so. Britain's cloudy skies may have played a role in that the genes for light hair could also cause light skin, reducing the chances of vitamin D deficiency. Sexual selection could also favor blond hair. The technique also enabled them to track the selection of polygenic traits—those affected by a multitude of genes, rather than just one—such as height, infant head circumferences, and female hip sizes (crucial for giving birth). They found that natural selection has been favoring increased height and larger head and female hip sizes among Britons. Moreover, lactase persistence showed signs of active selection during the same period. However, evidence for the selection of polygenic traits is weaker than those affected only by one gene.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A 2012 paper studied the DNA sequence of around 6,500 Americans of European and African descent and confirmed earlier work indicating that the majority of changes to a single letter in the sequence (single nucleotide variants) were accumulated within the last 5,000-10,000 years. Almost three quarters arose in the last 5,000 years or so. About 14% of the variants are potentially harmful, and among those, 86% were 5,000 years old or younger. The researchers also found that European Americans had accumulated a much larger number of mutations than African Americans. This is likely a consequence of their ancestors' migration out of Africa, which resulted in a genetic bottleneck; there were few mates available. Despite the subsequent exponential growth in population, natural selection has not had enough time to eradicate the harmful mutations. While humans today carry far more mutations than their ancestors did 5,000 years ago, they are not necessarily more vulnerable to illnesses because these might be caused by multiple mutations. It does, however, confirm earlier research suggesting that common diseases are "not" caused by common gene variants. In any case, the fact that the human gene pool has accumulated so many mutations over such a short period of time—in evolutionary terms—and that the human population has exploded in that time mean that humanity is more evolvable than ever before. Natural selection might eventually catch up with the variations in the gene pool, as theoretical models suggest that evolutionary pressures increase as a function of population size.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A study published in 2021 states that the populations of the Cape Verde islands off the coast of West Africa have speedily evolved resistance to malaria within roughly the last 20 generations, since the start of human habitation there. As expected, the residents of the Island of Santiago, where malaria is most prevalent, show the highest prevalence of resistance. This is one of the most rapid cases of change to the human genome measured.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Geneticist Steve Jones told the BBC that during the sixteenth century, only a third of English babies survived until the age of 21, compared to 99% in the twenty-first century. Medical advances, especially those made in the twentieth century, made this change possible. Yet while people from the developed world today are living longer and healthier lives, many are choosing to have just a few or no children at all, meaning evolutionary forces continue to act on the human gene pool, just in a different way.


title: Recent human evolution

text: While modern medicine appears to shield humanity from the pressures of natural selection, it does not prevent other evolutionary processes from taking place. According to neutral selection theory, natural selection affects only 8% of the human genome, meaning mutations in the remaining parts of the genome can change their frequency by pure chance. If natural selective pressures are reduced, then traits that are normally purged are not removed as quickly, which could increase their frequency and speed up evolution. There is evidence that the rate of human mutation is rising. For humans, the largest source of heritable mutations is sperm; a man accumulates more and more mutations in his sperm as he ages. Hence, men delaying reproduction can affect human evolution. The accumulation of so many mutations in a short period of time could pose genetic problems for future human generations.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A 2012 study led by Augustin Kong suggests that the number of "de novo" (new) mutations increases by about two per year of delayed reproduction by the father and that the total number of paternal mutations doubles every 16.5 years.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Dependence on modern medicine itself is another evolutionary time bomb. For a long time, it has reduced the fatality of genetic defects and contagious diseases, allowing more and more humans to survive and reproduce, but it has also enabled maladaptive traits that would otherwise be culled to accumulate in the gene pool. This is not a problem as long as access to modern healthcare is maintained. But natural selective pressures will mount considerably if that is taken away. Nevertheless, dependence on medicine rather than genetic adaptations will likely be the driving force behind humanity's fight against diseases for the foreseeable future. Moreover, while the introduction of antibiotics initially reduced the mortality rates due to infectious diseases by significant amounts, abuse has led to the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, making many illnesses major causes of death once again.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Human jaws and teeth have been shrinking in proportion with the decrease in body size in the last 30,000 years as a result of new diets and technology. There are many individuals today who do not have enough space in their mouths for their third molars (or wisdom teeth) due to reduced jaw sizes. In the twentieth century, the trend toward smaller teeth appeared to have been slightly reversed due to the introduction of fluoride, which thickens dental enamel, thereby enlarging the teeth.


title: Recent human evolution

text: In the middle of the eighteenth century, the average height of Dutch soldiers was 165 cm, well below European and American averages. However, 150 years later, the Dutch gained an average of 20 cm while the Americans only 6 cm. This is due to the fact that tall Dutchmen on average had more children than those who were short, as Dutchwomen found them more attractive, and that while tall Dutchwomen on average had fewer children than those of medium heights, they did have more children than those who were short. Things like good nutrition and good healthcare did not play as important a role as biological evolution. By contrast, in some other countries such as the United States, for example, men of average height and short women tended to have more children.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Recent research suggests that menopause is evolving to occur later. Other reported trends appear to include lengthening of the human reproductive period and reduction in cholesterol levels, blood glucose and blood pressure in some populations.<ref name="doi10.1073/pnas.0906199106"></ref>


title: Recent human evolution

text: Population geneticist Emmanuel Milot and his team studied recent human evolution in an isolated Canadian island using 140 years of church records. They found that selection favored younger age at first birth among women. In particular, the average age at first birth of women from Coudres Island ("Île aux Coudres"), northeast of Québec City, decreased by four years between 1800 and 1930. Women who started having children sooner generally ended up with more children in total who survive until adulthood. In other words, for these French-Canadian women, reproductive success was associated with lower age at first childbirth. Maternal age at first birth is a highly heritable trait.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Human evolution continues during the modern era, including among industrialized nations. Things like access to contraception and the freedom from predators do not stop natural selection. Among developed countries, where life expectancy is high and infant mortality rates are low, selective pressures are the strongest on traits that influence the number of children a human has. It is speculated that alleles influencing sexual behavior would be subject to strong selection, though the details of how genes can affect said behavior remain unclear.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Historically, as a by-product of the ability to walk upright, humans evolved to have narrower hips and birth canals and to have larger heads. Compared to other close relatives such as chimpanzees, childbirth is a highly challenging and potentially fatal experience for humans. Thus began an evolutionary tug-of-war. For babies, having larger heads proved beneficial as long as their mothers' hips were wide enough. If not, both mother and child typically died. This is an example of balancing selection, or the removal of extreme traits. In this case, heads that were too large or hips that were too small were selected against. This evolutionary tug-of-war attained an equilibrium, making these traits remain more or less constant over time while allowing for genetic variation to flourish, thus paving the way for rapid evolution should selective forces shift their direction.


title: Recent human evolution

text: All this changed in the twentieth century as Cesarean sections (or C-sections) became safer and more common in some parts of the world. Larger head sizes continue to be favored while selective pressures against smaller hip sizes have diminished. Projecting forward, this means that human heads would continue to grow while hip sizes would not. As a result of increasing fetopelvic disproportion, C-sections would become more and more common in a positive feedback loop, though not necessarily to the extent that natural childbirth would become obsolete.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian Institution noted that cultural factors could play a role in the widely different rates of C-sections across the developed and developing worlds. Daghni Rajasingam of the Royal College of Obstetricians observed that the increasing rates of diabetes and obesity among women of reproductive age also boost the demand for C-sections. Biologist Philipp Mitteroecker from the University of Vienna and his team estimated that about six percent of all births worldwide were obstructed and required medical intervention. In the United Kingdom, one quarter of all births involved the C-section while in the United States, the number was one in three. Mitteroecker and colleagues discovered that the rate of C-sections has gone up 10% to 20% since the mid-twentieth century. They argued that because the availability of safe Cesarean sections significantly reduced maternal and infant mortality rates in the developed world, they have induced an evolutionary change. However, "It's not easy to foresee what this will mean for the future of humans and birth," Mitteroecker told "The Independent". This is because the increase in baby sizes is limited by the mother's metabolic capacity and modern medicine, which makes it more likely that neonates who are born prematurely or are underweight to survive.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Researchers participating in the Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and was intended to investigate the cause of heart disease among women and their descendants in Framingham, Massachusetts, found evidence for selective pressures against high blood pressure due to the modern Western diet, which contains high amounts of salt, known for raising blood pressure. They also found evidence for selection against hypercholesterolemnia, or high levels of cholesterol in the blood. Evolutionary geneticist Stephen Stearns and his colleagues reported signs that women were gradually becoming shorter and heavier. Stearns argued that human culture and changes humans have made on their natural environments are driving human evolution rather than putting the process to a halt. The data indicates that the women were not eating more; rather, the ones who were heavier tended to have more children. Stearns and his team also discovered that the subjects of the study tended to reach menopause later; they estimated that if the environment remains the same, the average age at menopause will increase by about a year in 200 years, or about ten generations. All these traits have medium to high heritability. Given the starting date of the study, the spread of these adaptations can be observed in just a few generations.


title: Recent human evolution

text: By analyzing genomic data of 60,000 individuals of Caucasian descent from Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, and of 150,000 people in the UK Biobank, evolutionary geneticist Joseph Pickrell and evolutionary biologist Molly Przeworski were able to identify signs of biological evolution among living human generations. For the purposes of studying evolution, one lifetime is the shortest possible time scale. An allele associated with difficulty withdrawing from tobacco smoking dropped in frequency among the British but not among the Northern Californians. This suggests that heavy smokers—who were common in Britain during the 1950s but not in Northern California—were selected against. A set of alleles linked to later menarche was more common among women who lived for longer. An allele called ApoE4, linked to Alzheimer's disease, fell in frequency as carriers tended to not live for very long. In fact, these were the only traits that reduced life expectancy Pickrell and Przeworski found, which suggests that other harmful traits probably have already been eradicated. Only among older people are the effects of Alzheimer's disease and smoking visible. Moreover, smoking is a relatively recent trend. It is not entirely clear why such traits bring evolutionary disadvantages, however, since older people have already had children. Scientists proposed that either they also bring about harmful effects in youth or that they reduce an individual's inclusive fitness, or the tendency of organisms that share the same genes to help each other. Thus, mutations that make it difficult for grandparents to help raise their grandchildren are unlikely to propagate throughout the population. Pickrell and Przeworski also investigated 42 traits determined by multiple alleles rather than just one, such as the timing of puberty. They found that later puberty and older age of first birth were correlated with higher life expectancy.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Larger sample sizes allow for the study of rarer mutations. Pickrell and Przeworski told "The Atlantic" that a sample of half a million individuals would enable them to study mutations that occur among only 2% of the population, which would provide finer details of recent human evolution. While studies of short time scales such as these are vulnerable to random statistical fluctuations, they can improve understanding of the factors that affect survival and reproduction among contemporary human populations.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Evolutionary geneticist Jaleal Sanjak and his team analyzed genetic and medical information from more than 200,000 women over the age of 45 and 150,000 men over the age of 50—people who have passed their reproductive years—from the UK Biobank and identified 13 traits among women and ten among men that were linked to having children at a younger age, having a higher body-mass index, fewer years of education, and lower levels of fluid intelligence, or the capacity for logical reasoning and problem solving. Sanjak noted, however, that it was not known whether having children actually made women heavier or being heavier made it easier to reproduce. Because taller men and shorter women tended to have more children and because the genes associated with height affect men and women equally, the average height of the population will likely remain the same. Among women who had children later, those with higher levels of education had more children.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Evolutionary biologist Hakhamanesh Mostafavi led a 2017 study that analyzed data of 215,000 individuals from just a few generations in the United Kingdom and the United States and found a number of genetic changes that affect longevity. The ApoE allele linked to Alzheimer's disease was rare among women aged 70 and over while the frequency of the CHRNA3 gene associated with smoking addiction among men fell among middle-aged men and up. Because this is not itself evidence of evolution, since natural selection only cares about successful reproduction not longevity, scientists have proposed a number of explanations. Men who live longer tend to have more children. Men and women who survive until old age can help take care of both their children and grandchildren, in benefits their descendants down the generations. This explanation is known as the grandmother hypothesis. It is also possible that Alzheimer's disease and smoking addiction are also harmful earlier in life, but the effects are more subtle and larger sample sizes are required in order to study them. Mostafavi and his team also found that mutations causing health problems such as asthma, having a high body-mass index and high cholesterol levels were more common among those with shorter lifespans while mutations leading to delayed puberty and reproduction were more common among long living individuals. According to geneticist Jonathan Pritchard, while the link between fertility and longevity was identified in previous studies, those did not entirely rule out the effects of educational and financial status—people who rank high in both tend to have children later in life; this seems to suggest the existence of an evolutionary trade-off between longevity and fertility.


title: Recent human evolution

text: In South Africa, where large numbers of people are infected with HIV, some have genes that help them combat this virus, making it more likely that they would survive and pass this trait onto their children. If the virus persists, humans living in this part of the world could become resistant to it in as little as hundreds of years. However, because HIV evolves more quickly than humans, it will more likely be dealt with technologically rather than genetically.


title: Recent human evolution

text: A 2017 study by researchers from Northwestern University unveiled a mutation among the Old Order Amish living in Berne, Indiana, that suppressed their chances of having diabetes and extends their life expectancy by about ten years on average. That mutation occurred in the gene called Serpine1, which codes for the production of the protein PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor), which regulates blood clotting and plays a role in the aging process. About 24% of the people sampled carried this mutation and had a life expectancy of 85, higher than the community average of 75. Researchers also found the telomeres—non-functional ends of human chromosomes—of those with the mutation to be longer than those without. Because telomeres shorten as the person ages, they determine the person's life expectancy. Those with longer telomeres tend to live longer. At present, the Amish live in 22 U.S. states plus the Canadian province of Ontario. They live simple lifestyles that date back centuries and generally insulate themselves from modern North American society. They are mostly indifferent towards modern medicine, but scientists do have a healthy relationship with the Amish community in Berne. Their detailed genealogical records make them ideal subjects for research.


title: Recent human evolution

text: In 2020, Teghan Lucas, Maciej Henneberg, Jaliya Kumaratilake gave evidence that a growing share of the human population retained the median artery in their forearms. This structure forms during fetal development but dissolves once two other arteries, the radial and ulnar arteries, develop. The median artery allows for more blood flow and could be used as a replacement in certain surgeries. Their statistical analysis suggested that the retention of the median artery was under extremely strong selection within the last 250 years or so. People have been studying this structure and its prevalence since the eighteenth century.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Multidisciplinary research suggests that ongoing evolution could help explain the rise of certain medical conditions such as autism and autoimmune disorders. Autism and schizophrenia may be due to genes inherited from the mother and the father which are over-expressed and which fight a tug-of-war in the child's body. Allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders appear linked to higher standards of sanitation, which prevent the immune systems of modern humans from being exposed to various parasites and pathogens the way their ancestors' were, making them hypersensitive and more likely to overreact. The human body is not built from a professionally engineered blue print but a system shaped over long periods of time by evolution with all kinds of trade-offs and imperfections. Understanding the evolution of the human body can help medical doctors better understand and treat various disorders. Research in evolutionary medicine suggests that diseases are prevalent because natural selection favors reproduction over health and longevity. In addition, biological evolution is slower than cultural evolution and humans evolve more slowly than pathogens.


title: Recent human evolution

text: Whereas in the ancestral past, humans lived in geographically isolated communities where inbreeding was rather common, modern transportation technologies have made it much easier for people to travel great distances and facilitated further genetic mixing, giving rise to additional variations in the human gene pool. It also enables the spread of diseases worldwide, which can have an effect on human evolution. Furthermore, climate change may trigger the mass migration of not just humans but also diseases affecting humans. Besides the selection and flow of genes and alleles, another mechanism of biological evolution is epigenetics, or changes not to the DNA sequence itself, but rather the way it is expressed. Scientists already know that chronic illnesses and stress are epigenetic mechanisms.


title: Nubank

text: Nubank is a Brazilian neobank and the largest fintech bank in Latin America. Its headquarters are located in São Paulo, Brazil. The company also has engineering offices in Berlin, Germany, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an office in Mexico City, Mexico.


title: Nubank

text: In December 09, 2021, Nubank officially launched its public IPO offering on the NYSE, valuing the company at US$45 billion, making it the most valuable digital neobank.


title: Nubank

text: , Nubank has over 52.4 million customers in Brazil and 1.51 million distributed in Mexico and Colombia.


title: Nubank

text: Nubank was founded in 2013 by Colombian David Vélez, Brazilian Cristina Junqueira and American Edward Wible. The first transaction with a Nubank card was made on April 1, 2014. Four years later, Nubank became a unicorn startup with its valuation of US$1 billion.


title: Nubank

text: In the company's first two years of existence, it raised 600 million Brazilian reais. In September 2014, Nubank raised $14.3 million from Sequoia Capital, along with Kaszek Ventures and Nicolas Berggruen. Nubank launched its first financial product, an international Mastercard credit card that has no annuity fees and can be completely managed through a mobile app, and then in June 2015, Nubank led a series B round of investment with Tiger Global Management, along with existing backers Sequoia Capital, Kaszek Ventures and QED Investors.


title: Nubank

text: In 2017, Nubank launched its loyalty program, Nubank Rewards. The program's points (which never expire) can be redeemed for a product catalogue or discounts on services, travel and entertainment. Customers can try the program for free for 30 days, after which they will be charged a fee in order to further use it. In the same year, it also launched its digital account, NuConta.


title: Nubank

text: In October 2018, Tencent bought a minority stake of Nubank worth $180 million ($90 million in capital increase, $90 million in shares). In late 2018, it began offering payments through debit. In 2018, after launching its new credit card design, Nubank was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for making the world's largest unboxing. In early 2019, the fintech started testing personal loans with a few of its digital account users. In May 2019, the company announced it would begin operations in Mexico through a subsidiary called Nu. This was the first time Nubank offered its services and products outside of Brazil.


title: Nubank

text: In January 2020, Nubank made its first acquisition with the purchase of Plataformatec, a company that specialized in software engineering and agile methodologies, thus continuing its growth by including the team of 50 developers of Platformatec. In July of the same year, the company also acquired Cognitect, responsible for Datomic and the Clojure programming language. In September 2020, Nubank acquired Easyinvest, an investment broker also from Brazil, for an undisclosed amount.


title: Nubank

text: In November 2020, Nubank announced that the company would begin operations in Colombia. In April 2021, Edward Wible, who was CTO of the company for 8 years, left his position "to contribute more directly to the construction of the systems and infrastructure of the company" as the Director of Technological Platforms.


title: Nubank

text: The bank completed an IPO in December 2021. After the IPO, Nubank's cofounder Cristina Junqueira became the second woman in Brazil to reach the self-made billionaire status, since she held 2.9% of the stocks ($1.3 billion). Before and after the IPO, Berkshire Hathaway invested a total of $1 billion dollars in Nubank's stocks.


title: Nubank

text: In 2022, Nubank leads among the best banks of Brazil, by Forbes. The ranking, compiled by Forbes USA, evaluates issues such as customer satisfaction, reliability, digitalization, customer service, and financial advice.


title: Nubank

text: Among the company's products are NuConta (a digital account), an international credit card, both without fees, personal loans, life insurance and investments. The company's differentiating factor is to offer a credit card which is controlled completely through the means of a mobile app. The app allows its users to track transactions in real time, block their respective credit card, apply for a limit raise and contact customer support.


title: Nubank

text: Some of Nubank's investors are Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, Kaszek Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Goldman Sachs, Berkshire Hathaway, QED Investors and DST Global.