An unconventional family tree

An AAA family tree.

Analyzing the Family Tree

FamilySearch holds one of the largest collections of linked family history data in the world. Nearly one billion records of individuals, both deceased and living, have been recorded and placed together into a common tree (“The Family Tree”). The study of this ancestral relationship graph consists of the largest family history network ever analyzed. We have found a number of interesting properti...

Unconventional Models of Computation UMC’98 An Unconventional Review

Its January—summertime! The sun is up high, the surf is good, the sky is blue and the sand is golden and hot. As these lines are written, the author has settled on the beautiful beaches of New Zealand’s Northland. Unconventional methods of computation seem all but a remote possibility. And yet, many of today’s speculations become tomorrow’s physics and key technologies of the future. The questi...

Mutation of TweedleD, a member of an unconventional cuticle protein family, alters body shape in Drosophila.

Body shape determination represents a critical aspect of morphogenesis. In the course of investigating body shape regulation in Drosophila, we have identified a dominant mutation, TweedleD(1) (TwdlD(1)), that alters overall dimensions at the larval and pupal stages. Characterization of the affected locus led to the discovery of a gene family that has 27 members in Drosophila and is found only a...

Ferment in the family tree.

In 1953, botanist Jonathan D. Sauer suggested that our initial motivation to cultivate cereals was not for flour or bread, but for beer (1). The implications of this idea— that a preference for dietary ethanol, or alcohol, sparked the Neolithic Revolution (2)—are profound. No stage of human evolution has left a larger global footprint than the domestication of plants, animals, and landscapes (3...