This week's picks
Origins and Genetic Legacy of Neolithic Farmers and Hunter-Gatherers in Europe "DNA from ~5000-year-old remains of... one farmer excavated in Scandinavia... is genetically most similar to extant southern Europeans, contrasting sharply to the [three] hunter-gatherers, whose distinct genetic signature is most similar to that of extant northern Europeans" -- interesting, but they need more independent replicates!
In Situ Evolutionary Rate Measurements Show Ecological Success of Recently Emerged Bacterial Hybrids
Robust self-replication of combinatorial information via crystal growth and scission "neither enzymes nor covalent bond formation are required for robust chemical sequence replication" but the error rate seems too high to evolve anything useful: "78% of 4-bit sequences are correct after two generations"
Antarctic and Southern Ocean influences on Late Pliocene global cooling "a major expansion of an ice sheet in the Ross Sea that began at ∼3.3 Ma, followed by a coastal sea surface temperature cooling of ∼2.5 °C,"
Role of the Bering Strait on the hysteresis of the ocean conveyor belt circulation and glacial climate stability