Genetic Archaeology News - June 2007 Archives

Students Dig Into Iroquois Culture (6/30/2007)

The hot, dirty and exacting conditions of fieldwork can be a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for archaeologists and anthropologists. ...> Full Article

Domestic Cats 'Five Lives' Could Help Save Wild Relatives (6/30/2007)

All domestic cats are descended from at least five common ancestors from the Near East, Oxford University scientists and their collaborators have discovered. The new research, published in this week's Science, also suggests that the domestic cat's ancestors diverged from the ancestors of other populations of today's wildcats around 130,000 years ago, far earlier than previously suspected. ...> Full Article

How Fish Punish 'Queue Jumpers' (6/30/2007)

Fish use the threat of punishment to keep would-be jumpers in the mating queue firmly in line and the social order stable, a new study led by Australian marine scientists has found. ...> Full Article

Study Shows Successful Fathers Have Less Successful Daughters (6/30/2007)

he strongest and fittest of a species might be expected to produce the best offspring, but this is not always the case, researchers at the University have found. ...> Full Article

Invertebrate Immune Systems Are Anything But Simple (6/29/2007)

A hundred years since Russian microbiologist Elie Metschnikow first discovered the invertebrate immune system, scientists are only just beginning to understand its complexity. Presenting their findings at a recent European Science Foundation (ESF) conference, scientists showed that invertebrates have evolved elaborate ways to fight disease. ...> Full Article

Courting Electric Fish Play 'Electric Duet' (6/29/2007)

Cornell researchers have discovered that in the battle of the sexes, African electric fish couples not only use specific electrical signals to court but also engage in a sort of dueling "electric duet." ...> Full Article

Entomologist On International Team That Identified Mosquito's Immune System Genes (6/29/2007)

Understanding how the immune system evolved in insects can help scientists gain new insight into human response to infection, says an Iowa State University entomologist. ...> Full Article

Laboratory Experiments Take The Express Route To Evolution (6/28/2007)

Laboratory experiments have enabled researchers to bypass half a billion years of evolution, giving one protein the ability to function like a distantly related protein with just a few simple changes. The elegant experiments illustrate a powerful way to probe the structure of proteins and may open a way to making more effective pharmaceuticals. ...> Full Article

Study Shows Genes Play An Unexpected Role In Their Own Activation (6/28/2007)

Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered how a single molecular "on switch" triggers gene activity that might cause effects ranging from learning and memory capabilities to glucose production in the liver. ...> Full Article

Tasmanian Tiger Extinction Mystery (6/28/2007)

A University of Adelaide project led by zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin is investigating whether the world-fabled Tasmanian Tiger may have survived beyond its reported extinction in the late 1930s. ...> Full Article

Human-like Altruism Shown In Chimpanzees (6/27/2007)

Experimental evidence reveals that chimpanzees will help other unrelated humans and conspecifics without a reward, showing that they share crucial aspects of altruism with humans. ...> Full Article

Ice Age Extinction Claimed Highly Carnivorous Alaskan Wolves (6/27/2007)

The extinction of many large mammals at the end of the Ice Age may have packed an even bigger punch than scientists have realized. To the list of victims such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, a Smithsonian-led team of scientists has added one more: a highly carnivorous form of wolf that lived in Alaska, north of the ice sheets. ...> Full Article

Ancient Retrovirus Sheds Light On Modern Pandemic (6/25/2007)

Human resistance to a retrovirus that infected chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates 4 million years ago ironically may be at least partially responsible for the susceptibility of humans to HIV infection today. ...> Full Article

Daddies' Girls Choose Men Who Look Like Their Fathers (6/25/2007)

Women who enjoy good childhood relationships with their fathers select partners who resemble their dads research suggests. ...> Full Article

Studying Genes Of Desert Fruit Flies (6/25/2007)

Researchers at the University of Arkansas and University of Nevada-Las Vegas will study the genetics of fruit flies in desert habitats to determine how they developed the ability to survive under stressful conditions. ...> Full Article

Giant Bird-like Dinosaur Revealed From Inner Mongolia (6/24/2007)

Teaming up with local scholars, CAS paleontologists recently discovered a giant bird-like dinosaur from Erlian, one of the world-famous graveyards of "terrible lizards" in Inner Mongolia. ...> Full Article

Fossil Find Helps Pinpoint Origin Of Mammals (6/24/2007)

The discovery of a 65-million-year-old fossil in Mongolia offers new evidence that mammals began to thrive only after the dinosaurs died off. ...> Full Article

Another Sexual Attraction Is Possible (6/24/2007)

The coming summer vibrates with expressions of insect love and desire. The cicada's songs or the butterflies' bright colours are examples of how an emitting sex attracts conspecific members of the responding sex. Moth odours (pheromones), though less conspicuous for us humans, are also signals by which females guide males towards them, even on the darkest nights. Such mating recognition systems tend to be very specific, hence they are thought to play a major role in the evolution of mating barriers and in the formation of new species. ...> Full Article

Wild Sheep Descended From Single Pair Show Surprising Genetic Diversity (6/23/2007)

Scientists at Université du Québec à Montréal have reconstructed the genetic history of a population of mouflons (wild sheep) descended from a single pair. The researchers demonstrated that the animals’ genetic diversity increased over time, contrary to what the usual models predict. These results contradict the belief that a population descended from a small number of individuals will exhibit numerous deficiencies and reduced genetic diversity. ...> Full Article

Moss Genes Provided Fuse For Plant Life Explosion (6/23/2007)

Scientists from the John Innes Centre have identified the genes that control the development of root hairs on plants. Published in the journal Science, Professor Liam Dolan reports that these genes are also found in moss, a finding that changes our understanding of how the plants we see today evolved over 400 million years ago. ...> Full Article

Everyday Text Shows That Old Persian Was Probably More Commonly Used Than Previously Thought (6/23/2007)

For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a damaged clay tablet from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, now at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. The tablet is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C. ...> Full Article

Male Twins Can Reduce Their Sister's Fertility (6/23/2007)

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered that a twin brother's testosterone in the uterus can reduce his female twin's chances of marrying and having children. ...> Full Article

Researchers Demonstrate Way To Genetically Engineer The Height Of Trees (6/22/2007)

Forest scientists at Oregon State University have used genetic modification to successfully manipulate the growth in height of trees, showing that it's possible to create miniature trees that look similar to normal trees - but after several years of growth may range anywhere from 50 feet tall to a few inches. ...> Full Article

Archaeologists Discover Gold Processing Center (6/22/2007)

Archaeologists from the University of Chicago have discovered a gold processing center along the middle Nile, an installation that produced the precious metal sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The center, along with a cemetery they discovered, documents extensive control by the first sub-Saharan kingdom, the kingdom of Kus ...> Full Article

Circadian Rhythms Dominate All Life Functions, Plays Significant Role In Metabolism (6/21/2007)

New research from Colorado State University shows that the function of all genes in mammals is based on circadian - or daily - rhythms. The study refutes the current theory that only 10 percent to 15 percent of all genes were affected by nature's clock. While scientists have long known that circadian rhythms regulate the behavior of the living, the study shows that daily rhythm dominates all life functions and particularly metabolism. The new study presents oscillation as a basic property of all genes in the organism as opposed to special function of some genes as previously believed. ...> Full Article

Neanderthal Man Was An Innovator (6/21/2007)

Research challenges myth of primitive and backward species ...> Full Article

Why Starling Females Cheat (6/21/2007)

While humans stray from their mates for any number of reasons, superb starling females appear to stray for the sake of their chicks, according to recent Cornell research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. ...> Full Article

Anthropologist Discovers Remains Of Earliest Giant Panda (6/20/2007)

Although it may sound like an oxymoron, a University of Iowa anthropologist and his colleagues report the first discovery of a skull from a "pygmy-sized" giant panda -- the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda -- that lived in south China some two million years ago. ...> Full Article

Study Reveals Insect Supersociety (6/20/2007)

How social or altruistic behavior evolved has been a central and hotly debated question, particularly by those researchers engaged in the study of social insect societies of ants, bees and wasps. ...> Full Article

New Approach Offered On Reconstructing Biology Of Extinct Species (6/19/2007)

An international research team has documented the link between the way an animal moves and the dimensions of an important part of its organ of balance, the three semicircular canals of the inner ear on each side of the skull. The team's article on its research will be published on June 26 in the print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in the journal's online early edition during the week of June 18 to 22. ...> Full Article

Study Seeks Children Of Vietnam Veterans For Genetic Study (6/19/2007)

Research to uncover heritable links between post traumatic stress disorder in parents and disorders such as ADHD and autism in their children is being conducted by Queensland University of Technology PhD student Ken O'Brien. ...> Full Article

Mutating the Entire Genome (6/18/2007)

New Way to Hunt for Illness-Causing Mutants in non-Gene DNA ...> Full Article

Ancient Etruscans Were Immigrants From Anatolia, Or What Is Now Turkey (6/18/2007)

The long-running controversy about the origins of the Etruscan people appears to be very close to being settled once and for all, a geneticist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today. Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turin, Italy, will say that there is overwhelming evidence that the Etruscans, whose brilliant civilization flourished 3000 years ago in what is now Tuscany, were settlers from old Anatolia (now in southern Turkey). ...> Full Article

Color Pattern Spurs Speciation In Tropical Fish (6/18/2007)

A team of researchers from McGill University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) has provided the first example of how colour patterns on a coral reef fish species can drive its evolution into many distinct species. ...> Full Article

New Findings Challenge Established Views About Human Genome (6/17/2007)

A team of researchers led by University of Virginia Health System geneticists has uncovered a major secret in the mystery of how the DNA helix replicates itself time after time. It turns out that it is not just the sequence of the bases (building blocks) in the DNA, but also how loosely or tightly the chromatin (the material that makes up chromosomes) is packed at different points of the chromosome that is critical. ...> Full Article

Early Roadrunner Like Dinosaur Discovered (6/16/2007)

A new, primitive dinosaur species has been discovered by University of Cambridge palaeontologist Dr David Norman during an expedition in South Africa. ...> Full Article

Bomb Lance Found In Neck Of Large Bowhead Whale In Alaska (6/15/2007)

A nineteenth century bomb lance fragment, similar to lances manufactured in New Bedford, was found in a large bowhead whale in Barrow, Alaska, suggesting the whale was struck by the fragment around 1890. ...> Full Article

Important Secret In Gene Replication Uncovered (6/15/2007)

A team of researchers led by University of Virginia Health System geneticists has uncovered a major secret in the mystery of how the DNA helix replicates itself time after time. It turns out that it is not just the sequence of the bases (building blocks) in the DNA, but also how loosely or tightly the chromatin (the material that makes up chromosomes) is packed at different points of the chromosome that is critical. ...> Full Article

CT Scan Reveals Ancient Long-Necked Gliding Reptile (6/14/2007)

The fossilized bones of a previously unknown, 220 million-year-old long-necked, gliding reptile may remain forever embedded in stone, but thanks to an industrial-size CT scanner at Penn State's Center for Quantitative Imaging, the bone structure and behavior of these small creatures are now known. ...> Full Article

Physicist Cracks Women's Random But Always Lucky Choice Of X Chromosome (6/14/2007)

A University of Warwick physicist has uncovered how female cells are able to choose randomly between their two X chromosomes and why that choice is always lucky. ...> Full Article

Medaka Fish Genome Completed (6/13/2007)

The medaka fish (Oryzias latipes), a popular pet in Japan and model organism in the laboratory, has had its genome sequenced. The data, reported in this week's Nature, offer novel insights into vertebrate genome evolution. ...> Full Article

Scientists Propose The Kind Of Chemistry That Led To Life (6/13/2007)

Before life emerged on earth, either a primitive kind of metabolism or an RNA-like duplicating machinery must have set the stage - so experts believe. But what preceded these pre-life steps? ...> Full Article

Lizard Mothers Control The Patterning Of Skin In Children (6/13/2007)

Mothers know best when it comes to dressing their children, at least among side-blotched lizards, a common species in the western United States. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found that female side-blotched lizards are able to induce different color patterns in their offspring in response to social cues, "dressing" their progeny in patterns they will wear for the rest of their lives. ...> Full Article

Volcanic Eruptions Preserve Ancient History (6/12/2007)

Case assistant professor harvests the fossilized bones of animals from South America ...> Full Article

Agonized Pose Tells Of Dinosaur Death Throes (6/12/2007)

The peculiar pose of many fossilized dinosaurs, with wide-open mouth, head thrown back and recurved tail, likely resulted from the agonized death throes typical of brain damage and asphyxiation, according to two paleontologists. ...> Full Article

Scientists Discover Five New Species Of Sea Slugs From The Tropical Eastern Pacific (6/11/2007)

Scientist from the US and Mexico discover and research 5 new species of sea slugs in Panama's Gulf of Chiriqui. ...> Full Article

Caribbean Frogs Started With A Single, Ancient Voyage On Raft From South America (6/11/2007)

Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands, including the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico, originated from a single frog species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30 million to 50 million years ago, according to DNA-sequence analyses led by a research group at Penn State ...> Full Article

Ancient DNA Traces The Woolly Mammoth's Disappearance (6/11/2007)

Some ancient-DNA evidence has offered new clues to a very cold case: the disappearance of the last woolly mammoths, one of the most iconic of all Ice Age giants, according to a recent article. DNA lifted from the bones, teeth, and tusks of the extinct mammoths revealed a "genetic signature" of a range expansion after the last interglacial period. After the mammoths' migration, the population apparently leveled off, and one of two lineages died out. ...> Full Article

Study Helps Preserve Arctic Whale And Eskimo Subsistence Hunt (6/10/2007)

Research on one of the oldest-living mammals - the bowhead whale - has helped preserve a primary food source for Eskimos in the far reaches of Alaska, and also may provide a useful tool for studying genetic variation in other migratory animals. ...> Full Article

Mystery Of 5,000 Year Old Glacier Mummy Solved (6/10/2007)

An Italian-Swiss research team, including Dr. Frank Rühli of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich in Switzerland proved the cause of death of the Iceman ("Ötzi," 3300 BC) by modern X-ray-based technology. A lesion of a close-to-the-shoulder artery has been found thanks to a CT scan or multislice computed tomography, finally clarifying the world-famous glacier mummy's cause of death. ...> Full Article

Scientists Discover Unique New T Cell Receptor In Marsupial Research (6/10/2007)

Opossums are soft and furry, cute and cuddly looking and they could open up a new way in which critical cell types in the immune system called T cells, may be seeing pathogens based on new genome sequencing research involving scientists in the University of New Mexico's Biology department. The research, which is funded largely by the National Science Foundation, is set to be released in the June issue of the magazine PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article

Discovery Of Oldest Human Decorations – Thought To Be 82,000 Years Old (6/9/2007)

Archaeologists have discovered shell beads believed to be 82,000 years old - making them the oldest dated human decorations. These finds of handmade beads, in a limestone cave in Morocco, suggest that humans were fashioning purely symbolic objects in Africa 40,000 years before they did it in Europe. A paper on the discovery is published in this month's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article

Genetic Diversity Increases Horn Size And Reproductive Success (6/9/2007)

Size matters. At least, it does to an alpine ibex. ...> Full Article

Birds, Bees, and Moths Drive Flower Evolution (6/9/2007)

Flowers evolve in a predictable fashion to match the mouthparts of pollinating birds and insects, rather than engaging in a gradual "arms race" between flower and pollinator, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of California, Santa Barbara. An article describing the study is published in the June 7 issue of the journal Nature. ...> Full Article

Chimps Learn 'Local Customs' (6/9/2007)

Chimpanzee communities can acquire their own local customs and maintain their own 'multiple-tradition cultures', according to researchers at the University of St Andrews. ...> Full Article

Origins of Nervous System Found in Genes of Sea Sponge (6/8/2007)

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered significant clues to the evolutionary origins of the nervous system by studying the genome of a sea sponge, a member of a group considered to be among the most ancient of all animals. ...> Full Article

Company Announces Early-Access Program For Its Next-Generation Sequencing Platform (6/8/2007)

Applied Biosystems (NYSE:ABI), an Applera Corporation business, today announced the launch of the early-access program for its next-generation DNA sequencing system. The company said that it has shipped initial units of its SOLiD™ System to leading research institutions that include Stanford University, and has begun accepting orders from other customers. ...> Full Article

What Did Dinosaurs Hear? (6/8/2007)

What did dinosaurs hear? Probably a lot of low frequency sounds, like the heavy footsteps of another dinosaur, if University of Maryland professor Robert Dooling and his colleagues are right. What they likely couldn't hear were the high pitched sounds that birds make. ...> Full Article

Climate Change Linked To Origins Of Agriculture In Mexico (6/7/2007)

New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexico's Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history. Agriculture in the Balsas valley originated and diversified during the warm, wet, postglacial period following the much cooler and drier climate in the final phases of the last ice age. A significant dry period appears to have occurred at the same time as the major dry episode associated with the collapse of Mayan civilization, Smithsonian researchers and colleagues report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online. ...> Full Article

Preserving Library Of Congress Treasures Is Goal Of Researcher (6/7/2007)

With more than 134 million items in its collection, the Library of Congress has no shortage of reading materials. This summer, a Florida State University chemist will use his knowledge of cellulose, a key component of paper, to help the world's largest library find ways to preserve its vast treasure trove of books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers and pamphlets, many irreplaceable. ...> Full Article

Study Reveals Primates, and Their Neurons, in the Act of Reasoning (6/6/2007)

Every day humans make thousands of decisions, small and large, based on the information at hand and their assessment of the potential outcome of those choices. ...> Full Article

Polynesians Discovered America 100 Years Before Columbus (6/5/2007)

Prehistoric Polynesians, not European voyagers, may have brought chickens to the Americas, according to new research from The University of Auckland's Department of Anthropology which will be published in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). ...> Full Article

Volcano In Siberia Caused The Greatest Mass Extinction Event Of All Time (6/5/2007)

Scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge have discovered that Mother Nature caused a massive ozone depletion event, some 251 million years ago, during the greatest mass extinction event of all time. ...> Full Article

Salmon Parasite Identity Finally Revealed (6/4/2007)

Scientists from the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute (TAFI) at the University of Tasmania have made an unexpected discovery that has rewritten 20 years of research. They have identified a new species of parasitic amoeba as the cause of a familiar problem troubling Atlantis salmon aquaculture in Tasmania. ...> Full Article

Anthropologist Discovers Ancient Tomb In Honduras (6/3/2007)

Colgate anthropology professor Allan Maca and a team of researchers have found a previously unknown tomb in Copán, Honduras, dating back to the 7th century A.D. that contained the skeleton of an elite member of ancient Maya society in the city. ...> Full Article

Human Ancestors Learnt to Walk Upright in the Trees (6/3/2007)

cientists at the University of Liverpool have found that humans' ability to walk upright developed from ancestors foraging for food in forest tree tops and not from walking on all fours on open land. ...> Full Article

Cheetah Mothers Get Around (6/2/2007)

Female cheetahs are regularly unfaithful to their male partners, researchers from ZSL have found. ...> Full Article

Researchers To Study Genetic Cause Of Dwarfism (6/2/2007)

An international team of researchers have been awarded more than £2million to study the genetic causes of dwarfism in a bid to develop future treatments. ...> Full Article

Some Language Preferences May Be Genetic (6/1/2007)

Genetic differences may influence the type of language spoken by different human groups, according to University of Edinburgh researchers. ...> Full Article

Extraterrestrial Impact Wiped Out Prehistoric Clovis Culture (6/1/2007)

Two University of Oregon researchers are on a multi-institutional 26-member team proposing a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animals across North America almost 13,000 years ago. ...> Full Article