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Genetic Archaeology News - September 2007 Archives
 | Researchers offer a new view of what causes the greatest genetic variability among individuals - suggesting that it is due less to single point mutations than to the presence of structural changes that cause extended segments of the human genome to be missing, rearranged or present in extra copies. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have used an innovative approach to reveal the molecular basis of altruistic behavior in wasps. The research team focused on the expression of behavior-related genes in Polistes metricus paper wasps, a species for which little genetic data was available when the study was begun. ...> Full Article |
Researchers have shown that having an older brother can affect an individual's fertility. The research shows that people who have an older brother produce fewer children than those born after a sister.
...> Full Article
 | Researchers discovered that hair shafts provide an ideal source of ancient DNA -- a better source than bones and muscle for studying the genome sequences of extinct animals. Their research achievement includes the sequencing of entire mitochondrial genomes from 10 individual woolly mammoths. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers studied tribe that lives much as humans did 200,000 years ago ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have found evidence that supports the theory that reproductive competition during the evolution of primate species has occurred at the level of sperm cell motility. ...> Full Article |
 | New insight into the worm that causes the disease elephantiasis ...> Full Article |
 | When it comes to the FOXP2 gene, humans have had most to shout about. Discoveries that mutations in this gene lead to speech defects and that the gene underwent changes around the time language evolved both implicate FOXP2 in the evolution of human language. ...> Full Article |
 | A group of computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists from around the world have developed a computer algorithm that can help trace the genetic ancestry of thousands of individuals in minutes, without any prior knowledge of their background. ...> Full Article |
New research shows that when animals must choose less-than-preferred mates, females and males apparently have ways to compensate that increase the chance their offspring will survive.
...> Full Article
An international team of researchers has completed a new study on Homo floresiensis, commonly referred to as the "hobbit," a 3-foot-tall, 18,000-year-old hominin skeleton, discovered four years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.
...> Full Article
 | A new study of finger-sized Australian lizards sheds light on one of the most striking yet largely unexplained patterns in nature: Why is it that some groups of animals have evolved into hundreds, even thousands of species, while other groups include only a few? ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers to investigate the effects of natural mitochondrial variation on sperm traits and sperm competitive ability. ...> Full Article |
Basic principles of biology rather than women's newfound economic independence can explain why fewer of them are getting married and having children, and why the trend may only be temporary.
...> Full Article
 | The answer to a mystery that long has puzzled biologists may lie in prehistoric Polynesians' penchant for pretty white shells. ...> Full Article |
 | What began more than 50 years ago as a way to improve fishing bait in California has led researchers to a significant finding about how animal species interact and that raises important questions about conservation. ...> Full Article |
Smithsonian researchers are among the leaders in a worldwide effort to revolutionize the way scientists identify species in the laboratory and in the field with a technique called DNA barcoding. Similar to the barcode that identifies an item at the grocery store, a DNA barcode is used to identify and distinguish biological species.
...> Full Article
To many, urine smells like urine and vanilla smells like vanilla. But androstenone, a derivative of testosterone that is a potent ingredient in male body odor, can smell like either - depending on your genes. While many people ascribe a foul odor to androstenone, usually that of stale urine or strong sweat, others find the scent sweet and pleasant. Still others cannot smell it at all.
...> Full Article
 | When the larvae of the primitive social insect Polistes metricus, a paper wasp, slips into the quiet pupal stage, she doesn't know if she'll arise a worker or gyne (future queen) -- unless she consults with Arizona State University's social insect researcher Gro Amdam. ...> Full Article |
 | A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California's Año Nuevo Island turns out to be the youngest example on the Pacific coast of a fossil whale fall and the first in California, according to paleontologists. ...> Full Article |
 | The discovery of the first anatomically modern ear in a group of 260 million-year-old fossil reptiles significantly pushes back the date of the origin of an advanced sense of hearing, and suggests the first known adaptations to living in the dark. ...> Full Article |
In work that could lead to new treatments for sensory disorders in which people experience the strange phenomena of seeing better with one eye covered, MIT researchers report that they have identified the gene responsible for binocular vision.
...> Full Article
 | Genome sequence of plant pathogen reveals highly variable sites that may promote its virulence ...> Full Article |
They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.
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 | The mystery of what killed the Neanderthals has moved a step closer to resolution after an international study led by the University of Leeds has ruled out one of the competing theories - catastrophic climate change - as the most likely cause. ...> Full Article |
The earliest humans almost certainly walked upright on two legs but may have struggled to run at even half the speed of modern man, new research suggests.
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How we come to express the genes of one parent over the other is now better understood through studying the platypus and marsupial wallaby -- and it doesn't seem to have originated in association with sex chromosomes.
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 | The fossil record seems to indicate that the diversity of marine creatures increased and decreased over hundreds of millions of years in step with predator-prey encounters ...> Full Article |
 | Using a novel "deep sequencing" technology that can in one fell swoop decode 50 million sequences representing well over a billion bases of DNA, a research team led by University of Delaware scientists is working to unmask where, why and how certain genes are switched on or off in rice--a crop vital to the world's food supply. ...> Full Article |
 | Widespread starvation in species suggests problems in food chain ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists develop method to decipher gene history at genome-wide level; initial use in fungi turns up evolutionary surprises ...> Full Article |
 | A light-emitting strain of bacteria and a nematode worm, which work together to prey on soil-dwelling insects, use insecticidal toxins to kill their insect hosts. Scientists speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting are now investigating the potential role of these toxins in bacteria pathogenic to humans. ...> Full Article |
To think that world domination could have begun in the cheeks. That's one interpretation of a discovery, published online September 9 in Nature Genetics, which indicates that humans carry extra copies of the salivary amylase gene.
...> Full Article
 | A team led by scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Arizona, and 454 Life Sciences has found a significant connection between the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees. The findings, an important step in addressing the disorder that is decimating bee colonies across the country, are published in the journal Science this week. ...> Full Article |
 | Daughters inherit the same X chromosome from their father. ...> Full Article |
 | Female animals that mate with multiple partners may be doing so to ensure the optimum health of their grandchildren, according to researchers at the universities of Leeds and Exeter. ...> Full Article |
 | Searching for a different kind of riches in the ground, an oil company made a priceless find it never expected. ...> Full Article |
 | An 80-million-year-old dinosaur fossil unearthed in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia demonstrates that miniaturization, long thought to be a hallmark of bird origins and a necessary precursor of flight, occurred progressively in primitive dinosaurs. ...> Full Article |
 | Behind the sailor's lore of fearsome battles between sperm whale and giant squid lies a deep question of evolution: How did these leviathans develop the underwater sonar needed to chase and catch squid in the inky depths? ...> Full Article |
 | How do long, slender snake-like creatures manage to stuff large, struggling prey into their narrow mouths and down their throats without using paws or claws? A new study reveals that the slender, snake-like moray eel--which may reach up to about nine feet in length--captures and consumes its prey (usually large fish, octopuses and squid) with a unique strategy that involves using two sets of jaws. ...> Full Article |
Building a comprehensive microRNA expression atlas is not easy. Just ask the Rockefeller University scientists who, in a massive collaborative effort involving 50 investigators from six countries, led the project. In three years, they catalogued microRNA expression patterns in more than 250 healthy and diseased cell and tissue samples - human and rodent - from 26 different organ systems, and in the process discovered several dozen new microRNAs as well.
...> Full Article
 | A quest to gain a more complete picture of color vision evolution has led Biodesign Institute researcher Brian Verrelli to an up-close, genetic encounter with one of the world's most rare and bizarre-looking primates. ...> Full Article |
 | Three years ago, "ultraconserved elements" were discovered in the genomes of mice, rats, and humans. These are DNA sequences 200 base pairs in length or longer — some are over 700 base pairs long — showing 100-percent identity among the three species. They have been perfectly conserved since the last common ancestor of mice, rats, and humans, which lived some 85 million years ago. ...> Full Article |
Several genes with strong associations to schizophrenia have evolved rapidly due to selection during human evolution, according to new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
...> Full Article
 | Ancient DNA harvested from pigs has allowed scientists, for the first time, to accurately determine the arrival of early farmers into Europe 11,000 years ago during the latter part of the Stone Age. ...> Full Article |
 | Archaeological proof of the Biblical description of Israel really as "the land of milk and honey" (or at least the latter) has been uncovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology. ...> Full Article |
Plant biologists at the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that an autoimmune response, triggered by a small number of genes, can be a barrier to producing a viable offspring.
...> Full Article
 | Whole genome study reveals first robust genetic link to height in humans ...> Full Article |
 | It appears that chemical warfare has been around a lot longer than poison arrows, mustard gas or nerve weapons -- about 100 million years, give or take a little. ...> Full Article |
 | A major achievement has been reached in plant biology: the first detailed analysis of the grapevine genome has just been published. The joint effort carried out by scientists from Genoscope and INRA in France and from several Universities and the Istituto di Genomica Applicata (IGA) in Italy has produced a high-quality draft of the genome sequence of Vitis vinifera, the first for a fruit crop, cultivated for both fruit and beverage. ...> Full Article |
 | A team of scientists led by young Croatian evolutionary geneticist Tomislav Domazet-Lošo from Ruder Boškovic Institute (RBI) in Zagreb, Croatia, developed a novel methodological approach in evolutionary studies. Using the method they named 'genomic phylostratigraphy', its authors shed new and unexpected light on some of the long standing macroevolutionary issues, which have been puzzling evolutionary biologists since Darwin. ...> Full Article |
 | The African origin of early modern humans 200,000--150,000 years ago is now well documented, with archaeological data suggesting that a major migration from tropical east Africa to the Levant took place between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago via the presently hyper-arid Saharan-Arabian desert. ...> Full Article |
 | Witnesses say it looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a vampire. Others say it's a hopping wolf with red eyes and a trail of foul smell, while some claim it resembles a small panther with a forked tongue. ...> Full Article |
 | Ancient cities arose not by decree from a centralized political power, as was previously widely believed, but as the outgrowth of decisions made by smaller groups or individuals, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh. ...> Full Article |
 | In the September issue of The American Naturalist, Juan Carranza (Biology and Ethology Unit, University of Extremadura, Spain) and Javier Pérez-Barbería (Macaulay Institute, United Kingdom) offer a new explanation for why males of ungulate species subjected to intense competition are born with lower survival expectancies than females. ...> Full Article |
 | With the eye of an electrical engineer, Nels Peterson is hoping to bring a new, high-tech tool to the field excavation of dinosaurs, a labor of picks, shovels and brushes that has changed little over the past 100 years. ...> Full Article |
More than three million years ago, early hominins evolved the ability to walk upright and in doing so started us along the evolutionary path that eventually gave rise to Homo sapiens.
...> Full Article
 | Antarctica is home to the largest body of ice on Earth. Prior to approximately 10 years ago, no one thought that life could exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which can be more than two miles thick in places, because conditions were believed to be too extreme. However, Brent Christner, assistant professor of biological sciences at LSU, has spent a great deal of time in one of the world's most hostile environments conducting research that proves otherwise. ...> Full Article |
 | The mating ritual of the honey bee is a mysterious affair, occurring at dizzying heights in zones identifiable only to a queen and the horde of drones that court her. Now a research team led by the University of Illinois has identified an odorant receptor that allows male drones to find a queen in flight. The receptor, on the male antennae, can detect an available queen up to 60 meters away. ...> Full Article |
 | Twenty-two mummies in central Mexico-including one believed to be the world's youngest embalmed mummified fetus-have revealed clues to their identities, thanks to research conducted by a team of scientists this summer. ...> Full Article |
 | In a groundbreaking study, two Harvard scientists have for the first time extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times. ...> Full Article |
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Fish can recognize a face based on UV pattern alone
'Anaconda' meets 'Jurassic Park': Study shows ancient snakes ate dinosaur babies
Scientists locate apparent hydrothermal vents off Antarctica
Mars Express heading for closest flyby of Phobos
Artificial bee silk a big step closer to reality
Predicting the fate of stem cells
Artificial foot recycles energy for easier walking
New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
What drives our genes? Researchers map the first complete human epigenome
Juggling enhances connections in the brain
Tracking down the human 'odorprint'
Fill 'er up - with algae
Scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos
Researchers help identify cows that gain more while eating less
Unselfish molecules may have helped give birth to the genetic material of life
Exploring Echinacea's enigmatic origins
Lizard moms choose the right genes for the right gender offspring
Modern man found to be generally monogamous, moderately polygamous
Ancient DNA from rare fossil reveals that polar bears evolved recently and adapted quickly
Does promiscuity prevent extinction?
Stickleback genomes shining bright light on evolution
Researchers uncover DNA sequence of extinct ancient cattle
Small dogs originated in the Middle East
Ancient DNA reveals caribou history linked to volcanic eruption
Scientists create tiny RNA molecule with big implications for life's origins