surnames
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On names (specifically, my own).
What’s that thing Shakespeare wrote about roses? Something about thorns, right? Drat those awful thorns! We live in a pretty small town, where there are 30 or so grocery stores, maybe 10 or so “good” ones, and whichever we pick there’s a decent chance somebody shopping or working there will recognize us and stop to…
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On Y chromosomes, surnames, and reproduction.
For me, the most interesting section of Christine Kenneally’s “The Invisible History of the Human Race” was the section on Y chromosomes. Because, sure, if I’d spent a moment thinking about it I would have realized that sons of sons of sons carry the same Y chromosomes as their forebears… but it isn’t something I’d…
Frank Brown Cloud 