Genetic Archaeology News - July 2007 Archives

Study Solves Mystery Of Mammalian Ears (7/31/2007)

A 30-year scientific debate over how specialized cells in the inner ear amplify sound in mammals appears to have been settled more in favor of bouncing cell bodies rather than vibrating, hair-like cilia, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. ...> Full Article

Parents Seeking Sex Abandon 1 In 3 Offspring (7/31/2007)

The eggs of the penduline tit Remiz pendulinus are frequently abandoned as both parents go in search of new sexual conquests, a study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology has found. ...> Full Article

World's Oldest Functional Prosthetic Body Part (7/30/2007)

An artificial big toe attached to the foot of an ancient Egyptian mummy could prove to be the world's earliest functional prosthetic body part, say scientists. ...> Full Article

Cormorants Underwater Vision No Better Than Humans (7/29/2007)

Researchers at the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham have discovered that cormorants' underwater vision is no better than that of humans. They have found that these birds flush out prey by disturbing it, rather than pursuing it at speed. ...> Full Article

Grandfathers' Role In Reproduction Unravelled By Researchers (7/29/2007)

Researchers at the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with the University of Turku in Finland, have discovered that grandfathers have little influence on the reproductive success of their adult children, where as grandmothers gain two extra grandchildren for every ten years they live after the menopause. ...> Full Article

Process Paves Way for Zebrafish Knockout Bank (7/28/2007)

A new, more efficient technique for generating systematic zebrafish gene knockouts may soon provide the genomic research community with a comprehensive zebrafish gene knockout bank. In last week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the University of California, Los Angeles; and Peking University in Beijing, China, reported developing a technology to knockout zebrafish genes in a stable, targeted manner. ...> Full Article

Bagging Badlands In Search For Primate Fossils (7/28/2007)

In paleontology, discovery can be dirty. And the search can lead to some rugged places. This summer, Lamar University students and their professor, Jim Westgate, headed for the Badlands of Utah to do some paleontological prospecting. ...> Full Article

500 Year Old Korean Mummies May Provide Clues To Combat Hepatitis B (7/27/2007)

Mummies that have recently been unearthed in South Korea may provide clues on how to combat hepatitis B, according to Prof. Mark Spigelman of the Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ...> Full Article

New Fruit Fly Gene Discovery May Change Ideas About How New Genes Are Formed (7/27/2007)

Scientists thought that most new genes were formed from existing genes, but Cornell researchers have discovered a gene in some fruit flies that appears to be unrelated to other genes in any known genome. ...> Full Article

Scientists Unravel Feeding Habits Of Flying Reptiles (7/27/2007)

Scientists at the University of Sheffield, collaborating with colleagues at the Universities of Portsmouth and Reading, have taken a step back in time and provided a new insight into the lifestyle of a prehistoric flying reptile. ...> Full Article

Dogs Can See Light 5 Times Dimmer Than Humans (7/26/2007)

A lot better than we do, says Paul Miller, clinical professor of comparative ophthalmology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. ...> Full Article

Surprising New Species Of Light-harvesting Bacterium Discovered In Yellowstone (7/26/2007)

In the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, a team of researchers has discovered a novel bacterium that transforms light into chemical energy. The discovery of the chlorophyll-producing bacterium, Candidatus Chloracidobacterium (Cab.) thermophilum, will be described in the July 27 issue of the journal Science in a paper led by Don Bryant, Ernest C. Pollard professor of biotechnology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State, and David M. Ward, professor of microbial studies in the Thermal Biology Institute and Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University, and colleagues. ...> Full Article

Mastodon Extends The Time Limit On DNA Sequencing (7/25/2007)

In a new paper in PLoS Biology, Michael Hofreiter from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and colleagues from Switzerland and the United States, announce the sequencing of the complete mitochondrial genome of the mastodon (Mammut americanum), a recently extinct relative of the living elephants that diverged about 26 million years ago. ...> Full Article

How Our Ancestors Coped With Abrupt Climate Change (7/24/2007)

A research consortium, led by Professor John Lowe in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, has been awarded funding of £3m to develop a novel approach for assessing how humans may have responded to rapid environmental changes during the recent past. ...> Full Article

Blind Chickens Lay More Eggs (7/23/2007)

A strain of chickens that are naturally blind produce more eggs than their sighted counterparts, a U of G animal scientist has found. ...> Full Article

Research Suggests Single African Origin Of Humans (7/23/2007)

New research at the University of Cambridge claims to have compelling new evidence that humans stem from the same single point of origin. ...> Full Article

Charting Ever-Changing Genomes (7/23/2007)

Instead of immutable proprietary software, any species' genetic information resembles open source code that is constantly tweaked and optimized to meet the users' specific needs. But which parts of the code have withstood the test of time and which parts have undergone rapid evolutionary change has been difficult to assess. ...> Full Article

Queen Honeybees Promiscuity Produces More Productive Colonies (7/22/2007)

Why do queen honeybees mate with dozens of males? Does their extreme promiscuity, perhaps, serve a purpose? ...> Full Article

Whether Plant Or Animal New Genetic Model Can Predict Its Future (7/22/2007)

Rongling Wu is out to prove Mark Twain clearly didn't know a darn thing about genetics. ...> Full Article

African Black Plum Link To Baboon Contraception (7/21/2007)

Having spent a year in the rainforests of Nigeria, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow James Higham has announced unique findings on the reproductive ecology of female olive baboons and the contraceptive effects of the African black plum. ...> Full Article

Rise Of Dinosaurs Not So Rapid After All (7/21/2007)

Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors. ...> Full Article

Species Detectives Track Unseen Evolution (7/21/2007)

New species are evading detection using a foolproof disguise -- their own unchanged appearance. Research published in the journal, BMC Evolutionary Biology, suggests that the phenomenon of different animal species not being visually distinct despite other significant genetic differences is widespread in the animal kingdom. ...> Full Article

Sequencing Method Yields Fuller Picture (7/20/2007)

Sequence data for both chromosomes can be inferred under the right circumstances, USC biologists say. ...> Full Article

How Pathogens Evolve To Escape Detection (7/20/2007)

An arms race is under way in the plant world. It is an evolutionary battle in which plants are trying to beef up their defenses against the innovative strategies of pathogens. The latest example of this war is a bacterium (Pseudomonas syringae) that infects tomatoes by injecting a special protein into the plant's cells and undermines the plant's defense system. ...> Full Article

New Research Proves Single Origin Of Humans In Africa (7/20/2007)

New research published in the journal Nature (19 July) has proved the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world. The research, at the University of Cambridge and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), represents a final blow for supporters of a multiple origins of humans theory. ...> Full Article

Vaccine Trials Inject Hope Into Koala's Future (7/19/2007)

The first Australian trials of a vaccine developed by Queensland University of Technology that could save Australia's iconic koala from contracting chlamydia are planned to begin later this year. ...> Full Article

Study Identifies Energy Efficiency As Reason For Evolution Of Upright Walking (7/19/2007)

A new study provides support for the hypothesis that walking on two legs, or bipedalism, evolved because it used less energy than quadrupedal knucklewalking. ...> Full Article

New DNA Sequencing Technology Uses Firefly Enzymes To Read Genetic Code (7/18/2007)

Unique technology that uses the enzymes of fireflies to read the genetic code of DNA has been installed at the University of Liverpool. ...> Full Article

Arctive Foxes Once Thought To Be Monogamous Now Shown To Sleep Around (7/18/2007)

- Bees do it, chimps do it... Now it seems Arctic foxes do it, too. New research looking at the DNA fingerprints of canids in the Far North has revealed that foxes once thought to be monogamous are in fact quite frisky. ...> Full Article

Rapid Evolution Of Non-Coding DNA Since The Split Between Human And Chimp Genome (7/18/2007)

A difference of only a few percent in DNA sequence is thought to separate the human and chimp genomes. New research published in Genome Biology identifies the subset of sequences that may have driven the evolution of our two species. ...> Full Article

A First-Principles Model Of Early Evolution (7/17/2007)

In a study publishing in PLoS Computational Biology, Shakhnovich et al present a new model of early biological evolution -- the first that directly relates the fitness of a population of evolving model organisms to the properties of their proteins. ...> Full Article

Initial DNA Analysis Support Positive Identification Of Queen Hatshepsut (7/17/2007)

Preliminary results from DNA tests carried out on a mummy believed to be Queen Hatshepsut is expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are indeed those of Egypt's most powerful female ruler. ...> Full Article

Research Discovers Children With Tourette's Develop Grammar Skills Faster (7/17/2007)

Children with Tourette's syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute have found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder. ...> Full Article

Evidence Of Very Recent Human Adaptation: Up To 10 Percent Of Human Genome May Have Changed (7/16/2007)

A Cornell study of genome sequences in African-Americans, European-Americans and Chinese suggests that natural selection has caused as much as 10 percent of the human genome to change in some populations in the last 15,000 to 100,000 years, when people began migrating from Africa. ...> Full Article

Researchers Witness Natural Selection At Work In Dramatic Comeback Of Male Butterflies (7/16/2007)

An international team of researchers has documented a remarkable example of natural selection in a tropical butterfly species that fought back - genetically speaking - against a highly invasive, male-killing bacteria. ...> Full Article

Sour Taste Make You Pucker? It May Be In Your Genes (7/15/2007)

Scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center report that genes play a large role in determining individual differences in sour taste perception. The findings may help researchers identify the still-elusive taste receptor that detects sourness in foods and beverages, just as recent gene studies helped uncover receptors for sweet and bitter taste. ...> Full Article

How Plants Learned To Respond To Changing Environments (7/15/2007)

A team of John Innes Centre scientists led by Professor Nick Harberd have discovered how plants evolved the ability to adapt to changes in climate and environment. Plants adapt their growth, including key steps in their life cycle such as germination and flowering, to take advantage of environmental conditions . They can also repress growth when their environment is not favourable. This involves many complex signalling pathways which are integrated by the plant growth hormone gibberellin. ...> Full Article

Professor Probing The Evolution Of Tropical Orchids (7/14/2007)

John Cushman, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology professor, is making great strides in the ongoing research of plants with the metabolic ability to use less water than other plants. ...> Full Article

International Team Studying Remarkably Well-Preserved Baby Siberian Mammoth (7/14/2007)

University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher just returned from Siberia where he spent a week as part of a six-member international team that examined the frozen, nearly intact remains of a 4-month-old female woolly mammoth. ...> Full Article

Cells Take Risks With Their Identities (7/14/2007)

Biologists have long thought that a simple on/off switch controls most genes in human cells. Flip the switch and a cell starts or stops producing a particular protein. But new evidence suggests that this model is too simple and that our genes are more ready for action than previously thought. ...> Full Article

Exploring the Genetic Diversity of Flowers (7/13/2007)

Unlike moths and butterflies that are often brilliantly colored to warn potential predators that they carry toxins, flowers and the fruits they produce have brilliant colors and unusual shapes because they want to attract the attention of pollinators and frugivores who will disperse their pollen and seed, thus guaranteeing the next generation. ...> Full Article

Rapid Evolution Of Defense Genes In Plants May Produce Hybrid Incompatibility (7/13/2007)

Species are kept separate in plants and animals through barriers to gene flow. However, the exact mechanisms of speciation have only been explained within the last 20 years. Scientists found that one mechanism, hybrid necrosis, is associated with a plant defense gene. Different forms of these rapidly evolving genes in parent plants can cause autoimmune responses leading to offspring inviability and may represent a molecular pathway to speciation unique to plants. ...> Full Article

Successful Attempt At Identifying Insect-Specific Proteins (7/13/2007)

With nearly one million classified and named species, the insecta clade is the most diverse group of higher organisms on earth in terms of category, behavior, physiology and genetics. Although scientists have discovered that this high divergence results from the organism's adaptation to the environment and its long-time evolution over the past 400 million years, the reason and genetic mechanisms behind it remain unclear. Furthermore, despite the findings that proteins specific to the insect are the major future to distinguish it from others, people are not clear what they are. ...> Full Article

Ancient Americans Ate Chili Peppers 1,500 Years Ago (7/12/2007)

One of the world's tastiest and most popular cuisines, Mexican food also may be one of the oldest. ...> Full Article

New Discoveries From Ethiopia Fill Major Gap In Fossil Record (7/12/2007)

Scientists working in the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar Region, Ethiopia, have recovered fossils that may prove to be a bridge to establishing a relationship between the earlier Australopithecus anamensis (4.2 - 3.9 million years) and the later Australopithecus afarensis (3 - 3.6 million years) early human species. ...> Full Article

Researchers Discover How microRNAs Control Protein Synthesis (7/12/2007)

While most RNAs work to create, package, and transfer proteins as determined by the cell's immediate needs, miniature pieces of RNA, called microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression. Recently, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine determined how miRNAs team up with a regulatory protein to halt protein production. Results of the study were published recently in Cell. ...> Full Article

No Volcanic Winter¯ After Super Volcano Eruption (7/12/2007)

One of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history may not have had the cataclysmic effects that some scientists have proposed, Cambridge-led research has revealed. ...> Full Article

Internal Clock, External Light Regulate Plant Growth (7/11/2007)

Most plants and animals show changes in activity over a 24-hour cycle. Now, for the first time, researchers have shown how a plant combines signals from its internal clock with those from the environment to show a daily rhythm of growth. ...> Full Article

Neutral Evolution Has Helped Shape Our Genome (7/11/2007)

Johns Hopkins researchers have added to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans or other animals. ...> Full Article

Translational RNA Can Translate More DNA Than Previously Thought (7/11/2007)

The genetic information of our chromosomes is encoded into the language of DNA. This language is composed of code words, each representing one of the 20 amino acids found in proteins. How do cells translate the language of genetic information into functioning proteins? ...> Full Article

Study Shows Social Amoeba's Association With Kin Controls Single-Celled Cheaters (7/10/2007)

New research from Rice University shows how cooperative single-celled amoebae rely on family ties to keep cheaters from undermining the health of their colonies. The research appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May. ...> Full Article

City Site Was Dinosaur Dining Room (7/10/2007)

A dinosaur bone bed in southwest Edmonton that served as a feeding area for the direct ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex has revealed that two dinosaurs, thought to have lived in different eras, actually lived at the same time. ...> Full Article

Investigating Life In Extreme Environments Report Gives Hints On Life (7/9/2007)

From the deepest seafloor to the highest mountain, from the hottest region to the cold Antarctic plateau, environments labelled as extreme are numerous on Earth and they present a wide variety of features and characteristics. ...> Full Article

Spineless Worm With No Brain Related To Jellyfish (7/9/2007)

One of the world's strangest creatures has found its long-lost kin. Oxford University scientists have discovered that an extremely rare gutless worm is related to sea anemones and jellyfish, rather than similar-looking animals, reports this week's Science. The finding could cause an evolutionary rethink. ...> Full Article

Brightly Coloured Birds Most Affected By Chernobyl Radiation (7/8/2007)

Brightly coloured birds are among the species most adversely affected by the high levels of radiation around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, ecologists have discovered. The findings – published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology – help explain why some species are harder hit by ionising radiation than others. ...> Full Article

Anemone Genome Gives New View Of Multi-Celled Ancestors (7/8/2007)

The first analysis of the genome of the sea anemone shows it to be nearly as complex as the human genome, and researchers say it provides major insights into the common ancestor of not only humans and sea anemones, but of nearly all multi-celled animals. ...> Full Article

Stressed-Out African Naked Mole-Rats May Provide Environmental And Genetic Clues About Infertility In Humans (7/7/2007)

A tiny, blind, hairless subterranean rodent that lives in social colonies in the harsh, semi-arid conditions of Africa could shed light on stress-related infertility in humans, the 23rd annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology will hear today (Monday 2 July). ...> Full Article

Ancient Dna Shows Greenland Was Conifer Forest 450,000 Years Ago (7/7/2007)

Ancient Greenland was green. New Danish research has shown that it was covered in conifer forest and had a relatively mild climate. Professor Eske Willerslev has analysed the world's oldest DNA, preserved under the kilometre-thick icecap. The DNA is likely close to half a million years old, and the research results are overturning all previous assumptions about biological life and the climate in Greenland. The results have just been published in Science. ...> Full Article

Scientists To Sequence Eucalyptus Genome (7/6/2007)

An ambitious international effort has been launched today to decode the genome of Eucalyptus, one of the world's most valuable fibre and paper-producing trees. ...> Full Article

Unraveling How DNA Replicates (7/6/2007)

Cornell researchers have answered a fundamental question about how two strands of DNA, known as a double helix, separate to start a process called replication, in which genes copy themselves. ...> Full Article

Researchers Say Genes Hold Secret to Wheat's Success (7/5/2007)

The success of wheat as a food crop can be traced through thousands of years of genetic changes that occurred as wheat was domesticated for human use, write UC Davis plant scientists Jorge Dubcovsky and Jan Dvorak in the cover article of the current issue of the journal Science. ...> Full Article

Discovery Could Help Bring Down Price of DNA Sequencing (7/5/2007)

In May, Nobel Laureate James D. Watson, the scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA, became the first person to receive his own complete personal genome -- all three billion base pairs of his DNA code sequenced. The cost was $1 million, and the process took two months. ...> Full Article

Scientists Search For Genetic Link Between Ancient And Modern Wolves (7/4/2007)

The ancient gray wolves of Alaska became extinct some 12,000 years ago, and the wolves in Alaska today are not their descendents but a different subspecies, an international team of scientists reports in the July 3 print edition of the journal Current Biology. ...> Full Article

Paleobotanist's Reconstruction What 380 Million Year Old Trees Looked Like (7/3/2007)

The prestigious British journal Nature this week published a Binghamton faculty member's new insights into the world's oldest trees. ...> Full Article

Book Makes Case For Using Evolution In Everyday Life (7/3/2007)

Evolution is not just about human origins, dinosaurs and fossils, says Binghamton University evolutionist David Sloan Wilson. It can also be applied to almost every aspect of human life, as he demonstrates in his first book for a general audience, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Bantam Press 2007). ...> Full Article

Original Human 'Stone Age' Diet Is Good For People With Diabetes (7/3/2007)

Foods of the kind that were consumed during human evolution may be the best choice to control diabetes type 2. A study from Lund University, Sweden, found markedly improved capacity to handle carbohydrate after eating such foods for three months. ...> Full Article

Applied Biosystems Helps Build Egypt's First Laboratory for Ancient DNA Analysis (7/2/2007)

Royal Mummies Tested through Collaboration with Discovery Channel and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities ...> Full Article

Earliest-Known Evidence Of Peanut, Cotton And Squash Farming Found (7/2/2007)

Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes. ...> Full Article

Trade-Offs Between Force And Fit Shape Beetles (7/2/2007)

Large jaws are efficient in crushing hard prey, whereas small jaws are functional in capturing elusive prey. Researchers have suggested that such trade-offs between "force" and "velocity"¯ could cause evolutionary diversification of morphology in animals such as birds, fish, and salamanders. Junji Konuma and Satoshi Chiba of Tohoku University found that a new trade-off exists in animal feeding behavior. The team suggests that diversification of carabid beetles could be caused by a "force" and "fit" trade-off. ...> Full Article

Which Came First: Primates' Ability To See Colorful Food Or See Colorful Sex? (7/2/2007)

The adaptive significance of the unique ability in many primates to distinguish red hues from green ones (i.e., trichromatic color vision) has always enticed debate among evolutionary biologists. The conventional theory is that primates evolved trichromatic color vision to assist them in foraging, specifically by allowing them to detect red/orange food items from green leaf backgrounds. However, the results from several empirical studies have called into question the extent to which trichromacy functions in foraging and if it provides a performance advantage over dichromatic primates (who lack red-green color vision). Other studies have suggested that trichromacy evolved in primates so that they could use physical traits like red skin in socio-sexual communication, such as a male providing information to a female about his mate quality. ...> Full Article

Gossip An Evolutionary Tool Not A Character Flaw (7/1/2007)

A new study in Journal of Applied Social Psychology suggests that gossip is not a character flaw, but an evolved mechanism for maintaining status in one's social group. "The results of our study confirmed a consistent pattern of interest in gossip that is exploitable for social gain," says study author Francis McAndrew. "Specifically, damaging, negative news about rivals and positive news about friends and lovers was especially prized and likely to be passed on." ...> Full Article

Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core (7/1/2007)

Multifunctional neurons that sense the environment and release hormones are the evolutionary basis of our brains ...> Full Article

Study Profiles Microbes that Colonize Babies Digestive Tracts (7/1/2007)

For more than 100 years, scientists have known that humans carry a rich ecosystem within their intestines. An astonishing number and variety of microbes, including as many as 400 species of bacteria, help humans digest food, mitigate disease, regulate fat storage, and even promote the formation of blood vessels. By applying sophisticated genetic analysis to samples of a year's worth baby poop, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have now developed a detailed picture of how these bacteria come and go in the intestinal tract during a child's first year of life. ...> Full Article

Fossils Reveal Early Penguins Reaching 5 Ft. Tall Lived Near the Equator During One of Earth's Warmest Periods (7/1/2007)

Giant prehistoric penguins? In Peru? It sounds more like something out of Hollywood than science, but a researcher from North Carolina State University along with U.S., Peruvian and Argentine collaborators has shown that two heretofore undiscovered penguin species reached equatorial regions tens of millions of years earlier than expected and during a period when the earth was much warmer than it is now. ...> Full Article

Anthropologist Researches Monacan Tribe (7/1/2007)

Karenne Wood carries with her a responsibility that most anthropologists never consider. As a Monacan Indian, she brings her people along with her wherever she goes. This includes into the halls of academia, which, when it comes to cultural research, has not always been kind to Native Americans. ...> Full Article