Life Surrounded by Mountains in Central Chile

Ah, pepinos are not what my MIL sent us, then. I don't remember the name, but it was a strange fruit IMO. Almost olive-sized, with a very wet fruit and a huge pit. There was more pit than fruit, and I actually found the things far more trouble to eat than they could ever be worth.

But you are making me really want to try cherimoya now!

You can sometimes get chirimoyas at Whole Foods sometimes. They are expensive, and in my opinion, they don't travel well. They were very starchy when I got them there, not worth the money. That's just one more reason why you have to come to visit Chile, PeggyC.

Thank you, Galileo. I believe this to be the information to which you are referring. The article comes from the NY Times.

Scientists Trace an Ancient DNA Link Between Amazonians and Australasians
By JAMES GORMAN

JULY 21, 2015
Scientists found that some people in the Brazilian Amazon have an ancient genetic tie to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians. Some people in the Brazilian Amazon are very distant relations of indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians, two groups of scientists who conducted detailed genetic analyses reported Tuesday. But the researchers disagree on the source of that ancestry.
The connection is ancient, all agree, and attributable to Eurasian migrants to the Americas who had some Australasian ancestry, the scientists said.
But one group said the evidence is clear that two different populations came from Siberia to settle the Americas 15,000 or more years ago. The other scientific team says there was only one founding population from which all indigenous Americans, except for the Inuit, descended and the Australasian DNA came later, and not through a full-scale migration. For instance, genes could have flowed through a kind of chain of intermarriage and mixing between groups living in the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific Coast.Both papers were based on comparisons of patterns in the genomes of many living individuals from different genetic groups and geographic regions, and of ancient skeletons.
David Reich of Harvard, the senior author of a paper published Tuesday in the journal Nature, said the DNA pattern was “surprising and unexpected, and we weren’t really looking for it.” Pontus Skoglund, a researcher working with Dr. Reich who was investigating data gathered for previous research, found the pattern, or signal, as he described it. He and Dr. Reich and their colleagues used numerous forms of analysis, comparing different groups to see how distant they were genetically, to determine if there was some mistake. But, Dr. Skoglund said, “we can’t make it go away.”
Dr. Reich reported in 2012, based on some of the same evidence, that a group he called the First Americans came from Siberia 15,000 or more years ago, and were the ancestors of most Native Americans on both continents. There was a second and later migration, he said, that gave rise to a group of Indians including the Chipewyan, Apache and Navajo, who speak similar languages. The Inuit are generally agreed to have made a separate, later migration.
Now, based on new evidence and much deeper analysis, he and Dr. Skoglund and colleagues concluded that the first migration, which began 15,000 or more years ago, consisted not only of the group he identified as the First Americans, but of a second group that he calls Population Y. They could have come before, after or around the same time as the First Americans. But Population Y, he writes, “carried ancestry more closely related to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders than to any present-day Eurasians or Native Americans.”
Population Y comes from Ypykuéra, a word meaning ancestor in a language spoken by the two Amazonian groups, the Surui and Karitiana, that show the strongest genetic connection to Australasians.
The other paper, published in the journal Science, originated in the lab of Eske Willerslev, a noted detective of ancient DNA at the University of Copenhagen and the Center for Geogenetics. It came to involve 101 authors around the globe over several years of work. The goal, said Maanasa Raghavan, a molecular biologist in Copenhagen who was one of the main scientists on the project, was to bring together genomic, archaeological and other research on modern and ancient peoples of the Americas to come up with a clearer picture of how the continents were populated.
They concluded that Native Americans diverged genetically from Eurasians about 23,000 years ago. They also concluded, in contrast to the Harvard group, that all indigenous Americans except the Inuit came from one founding population.
But they, too, found the trace of Australasian ancestry in some South American natives, although it was not as strong as that reported by Harvard.
Dr. Raghavan said the raw evidence in both papers of an Australasian genetic signal was consistent.
“What is different is how we think that the signal got here,” she said.
Neither group supported an existing theory, based on the shape of ancient skulls in South America, that a group called PaleoAmericans, who were very similar to Australasians, came to the Americas before the ancestors of most Native Americans did. The Science paper specifically rejected that idea, saying that both gene studies and a re-examination of the shape of some historical skulls contradicted that theory.
Rasmus Nielsen, a computational geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the senior authors of the Science paper, said he saw no conflict in the raw data used in the two studies.
David Meltzer, an anthropologist and archaeologist at Southern Methodist University and another author of the Science paper, said the difference in interpretation between the two groups was “not an irresolvable problem.” More analysis of ancient DNA or the discovery of a new skeleton could provide an answer.
Dr. Reich, of Harvard, agreed that the papers were not in disagreement, but said his team had delved far deeper in its analysis of the Australasian trace.
“We have overwhelming evidence of two founding populations in the Americas,” he said.

If the First Americans came from Australia to the Amazon via Siberia, they could have easily travelled from the Amazon to Chile.

A question for those who know beer: would you drink an expensive bottle of beer that has been brewed by a local brewmaster and the beer has clumps of something floating on it? what is that junk? I am curious to know how it tastes, but I have never seen junk in beer. Isn't beer made of barley and other grains? shouldn't that be out of the bottle?

So today I have an appointment with the orthopedist so that they can look at my hand, and I can begin physical therapy once again. It works well, for the most part, but it is weak, and at times it does bother me.

Good luck! ><

Thanks. So far, so good. Hand checked out just fine, rotator cuff injury from four years ago healed well too, but the right rotator cuff which was damaged as I compensated for having the left side of my body out of commission four years ago, needs further testing on Monday. It has a tear, and they have to determine how large it is.

H'm.

Maybe you'll have to put up with some horrible salt-water swimming to fix some of this...

The doctor made that same suggestion, but the water is COLD here in summer, never mind winter. I don't know of heated pools anywhere in the area. There are plenty of pools, but they aren't heated.

I'd ask my niece's husband, but it's the wrong part of Chile.

(Not quite as obscure a response as this seems at first glance. His dad is having rehab after a stroke earlier this year)

This road is replete with pelicans looking for a free meal from fishermen and tourists. This babe stole my heart. He allowed me to chase him all over the road while I told him how much I thought he was loveliest creature I had seen in years. Fortunately the drivers, even the buses, allowed me to pour my admiration all over the road while my car blocked traffic in that narrow street.

They are much cuter than the scruffy Pelicans I remember from the Greek islands.

Copihue said:
A question for those who know beer: would you drink an expensive bottle of beer that has been brewed by a local brewmaster and the beer has clumps of something floating on it? what is that junk? I am curious to know how it tastes, but I have never seen junk in beer. Isn't beer made of barley and other grains? shouldn't that be out of the bottle?

Since nobody answered my cry for help, I took the matter into my own hands. This is what came of it which happens to be one of the top five dishes that I have ever made. I used the beer, garlic, olive oil, merken (a Chilean spice which is hot and smoky) to cook the seafood. When the seafood opened, I pulled it out of the pot immediately, and I added mint, lemon zest and more garlic. It cooks fast, it is delicious and very low in calories buy high in protein and relatively inexpensive.

Looks delicious! Yum! So how was that beer?

Now that I know that it won't make me sick, I will certainly buy that beer again. It was very tasty; I tried it before using it on the seafood.

I've been here for three-and-a-half months, and it has not rained. We had sunny days that allowed me to wear t-shirts mid-winter. It's raining now, and it's not expected to stop until Monday morning. This is what I am wearing now:

It's raining that heavily???

Yes, and it is begining to stop being so funny. This town is full of steep hills, and many of the streets are flooded. Not in my neighborhood, but in the town where I live.

You need a pair of these! I believe there are sneakers too, for shallower waters.

Yes, I do need those shoes. How do they clean the water in those shoes? You would need a filtration system with nanotechnology which would fit on the heel of the shoe, and what about feeding the fish? At least the fish would not be bored since the scenery would constantly be changing.

I suspect the heel somehow separates for cleaning and feeding. First found the image about 4 years ago for our Brisbane floods.

So how much has it rained here? this is a sample.

And it has created world class potholes.

That is so bad...the potholes are huge ..worse than when I was recently inWV !

Hope you are safe on your home and getting food etc

I'm fine, we're all fine. Thanks, Icdart.

So I was bored yesterday from all the rain, and I decided to take a ride to the mall. And there was a tiny puppy curled up in the cement in the corner entrance to the mall. She was sleeping and shivering. I thought: she's gonna get pneumonia. I went to get my car and I put her in the back. I got her a blanket, and then a house, and a food and water bowl, and a leash and a collar, and I took her to the vet to check her out, and I gave her a bath.

Paz is 11.8 kg, and about 7 to 8 months old. I am in a rented home with a contract which allows two dogs not three. My thinking was that I would leave her in the yard, until I found her a home after she gets all the shots, and after she is neutered. No, she screamed bloody murder, and I had to bring her into the house. My pups are not crazy about the intruder, but they leave her alone.

Today I went over to my sister's for lunch, and then I took her and her live-in boyfriend to the doctor; they are in their mid-eighties and in fabulous shape. When I got home five hours later, Jake and Rachel were sleeping in the couch next to the front window/door, and she was upstairs. What did I get for my compassionate deed other than lectures from every single relative I have? "You can't pick up every dog in the street, there are dogs everywhere, and your life will be full of dogs."

Paz gave me a huge welcome when I came home; and she gave Jake a huge, fat flea. The vet said she had no fleas! I saw her scratching, so I literally combed her with a fine-tooth comb, and I also found no flees. Fortunately I brought a stash of K9 advantix II, and I gave her some and the rest to Jake and Rachel. Jake could have gotten those fleas by himself, but whatever, she is going to have to sleep outside at least tonight.

In the picture below she is with Jake this morning when we went for our morning walk. The vet gave her a pill for the parasites in her g.i. track, and all day she has been pushing them out of her system. Jake, you might remember, is allergic to chicken. While I was taking Paz to do her business in the rainstorm, he ate all the chicken bones from dinner which were in the garbage. Hence, I have fleas and allergic reaction to address for the near and distant future.

Awww. I can understand you wanting to help her. Good luck with it all!

musicmz said:
Awww. I can understand you wanting to help her. Good luck with it all!

What musicmz said.

She is a handful, and Rachel and Jake are quiet and unhappy about the new addition. I have contacted a local rescue group who will help me find her a good home; the vet also said that he would help, and I will create a nice flyer. Meantime I have to train her; she pees inside the house, ate the garbage and got sick (this was after I fed her), she dug up the yard, and of course we still have the flea problem. I don't think that it is a major problem, but it needs to be addressed quickly. Thank you for your support.

Last night the winds were howling at 3:30 am; it was as bad as Irene and Sandy if not worse. The lights went out, and I realized that I haven't done any preparation for emergencies. I have to take care of this as well.

This has become a major storm with a great deal of damage to private property. This photo is of one of the beaches; no telling how much sand will be left when the storm ends as expected on Tuesday. The ocean has reached high rises that face the beach, cars have been tossed like match sticks against the same buildings, and there are other cars floating on the creaks. But we are fine, our electricity was restored while I was walking the dogs early in the morning.