Genetic Archaeology News Archives Page 18

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

Cheetah Mothers Get Around (6/2/2007)

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

For Many Insects, Winter Survival Is In The Genes (5/31/2007)

Many insects living in northern climates don't die at the first signs of cold weather. Rather, new research suggests that they use a number of specialized proteins to survive the chilly months. ...> Full Article

Mule Deer Better Mothers Than Whitetail Cousins (5/31/2007)

Mule deer are giving a whole new dimension to the term 'maternal instinct.' ...> Full Article

Recently Excavated Headless Skeleton Expands Understanding Of Ancient Andean Rituals (5/30/2007)

Images of disembodied heads are widespread in the art of Nasca, a culture based on the southern coast of Peru from AD 1 to AD 750. But despite this evidence and large numbers of trophy heads in the region's archaeological record, only eight headless bodies have been recovered with evidence of decapitation, explains Christina A. Conlee (Texas State University). Conlee's analysis of a newly excavated headless body from the site of La Tiza provides important new data on decapitation and its relationship to ancient ideas of death and regeneration. ...> Full Article

Evidence From Ancient Graves Raises Questions About Ritual Human Sacrifice Among Hunter Gatherers In Europe (5/30/2007)

A new article explores ancient multiple graves and raises the possibility that hunter gatherers in what is now Europe may have practiced ritual human sacrifice. This practice - well-known in large, stratified societies - supports data emerging from different lines of research that the level of social complexity reached in the distant past by groups of hunter gatherers was well beyond that of many more recent small bands of modern foragers. ...> Full Article

Rare Footprints of Infant Dinosaur Discovered (5/29/2007)

Researchers at the Morrison Natural History Museum have discovered two rare hatchling dinosaur footprints in the foothills west of Denver, near the town of Morrison. ...> Full Article

Color Vision Drove Primates to Develop Red Skin and Hair (5/28/2007)

You might call it a tale of 'monkey see, monkey do.' Researchers at Ohio University have found that after primates evolved the ability to see red, they began to develop red and orange skin and hair. ...> Full Article

New Genetic Data Overturn Long-Held Theory Of Limb Development (5/27/2007)

Long before animals with limbs (tetrapods) came onto the scene about 365 million years ago, fish already possessed the genes associated with helping to grow hands and feet (autopods) report University of Chicago researchers in the May 24, 2007, issue of Nature. ...> Full Article

Analysis Reveals Extent of DNA Repair Army (5/27/2007)

Cells have the remarkable ability to keep track of their genetic contents and - when things go wrong - to step in and repair the damage before cancer or another life-threatening condition develops. ...> Full Article

Definitive Evidence Found of a Swimming Dinosaur (5/26/2007)

An extraordinary underwater trackway with 12 consecutive prints provides the most compelling evidence to-date that some dinosaurs were swimmers. The 15-meter-long trackway, located in La Virgen del Campo track site in Spain's Cameros Basin, contains the first long and continuous record of swimming by a non-avian therapod dinosaur. ...> Full Article

Ancient Meteor Blast May Have Caused Extinctions (5/26/2007)

New scientific findings suggest that a large, extraterrestrial rock may have exploded over North America 13,000 years ago, explaining riddles that scientists have wrestled with for decades, including an abrupt cooling of the atmosphere and the extinction of large mammals. ...> Full Article

Botulism Genome Completed With Few Surprises (5/25/2007)

Genome of Clostridium botulinum reveals the background to world's deadliest toxin ...> Full Article

DNA Clues To Inform Conservation In Africa (5/25/2007)

Tracing the evolutionary history of wildlife could improve global habitat conservation, a major Cardiff University study has found. ...> Full Article

Cannibalism Of The Young Allows Individual Fish To Specialize (5/25/2007)

If you go fishing for Arctic char you may end up catching distinctly different-looking individuals although they were all caught in the same lake. Similarly, whitefish, threespine stickleback, and some sunfishes also display quite discrete groups living in the same lakes but utilizing different food resources in order to survive. ...> Full Article

Gene That Allows Us to Taste Sugars Identified (5/25/2007)

USC College neuroscientist Emily Liman reveals a pathway from the tongue to the brain. ...> Full Article

Creating Proteins By Synthetic Evolution (5/24/2007)

Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired by this success, a new Biodesign Institute research team, led by John Chaput, is now trying to mimic the process of Darwinian evolution in the laboratory by evolving new proteins from scratch. Using new tricks of molecular biology, Chaput and co-workers have evolved several new proteins in a fraction of the 3 billion years it took nature. ...> Full Article

Discovery Of Ecological And Metabolic Roles Of Archaea In Hot Springs May Shed Light On Early Evolution (5/24/2007)

Discovered in the late 1970s, archaea are one of the three main branches on the tree of life, with bacteria and eukaryotes such as plants and animals on the other two branches. But scientists are just now gaining a fuller understanding of what archaea do – in an ecological sense – to make a living. ...> Full Article

Math and Language Abilities Linked to Finger Length (5/24/2007)

The results of numeracy and literacy tests for seven-year-old children can be predicted by measuring the length of their fingers, shows new research. ...> Full Article

Genes Affect Aggression In Mice Species (5/24/2007)

Imagine if a naturally occurring chemical in your body could help make you feel more calm and relaxed - but it would only work during the long days of summer. ...> Full Article

Resistance Genes In Our Food Supply (5/24/2007)

Could the food we eat be contributing to the continuing rise of antibiotic-resistant infections? Harmless and even beneficial bacteria that exist in our food supply may also be carrying genes that code for antibiotic resistance. Once in our bodies, could they transmit the resistance genes to disease-causing bacteria? ...> Full Article

Latent Memory Of Cells Comes To Life (5/23/2007)

New research has examined the mechanisms behind latent cell memory, which can come to life and cause previously non-existent capacities suddenly to appear. Special yeast cells for example, can abruptly change from being of a single sex to hermaphrodite. ...> Full Article

Tropical Birds Have Slow Pace of Life Compared to Northern Species (5/23/2007)

In the steamy tropics, even the birds find the pace of life a bit more relaxed, research shows. ...> Full Article

Shark Born From Virgin Birth (5/23/2007)

On 14 December 2001, workers at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, came to work to discover a mystery that went unsolved for six years. That day they discovered a new baby hammerhead shark, in a tank with only females. ...> Full Article

Scientists Reconstruct Prehistoric Behavior And Ecology Of Northern Fur Seals (5/23/2007)

A team of researchers has documented major changes in the behavior, ecology, and geographic range of the northern fur seal over the past 1,500 years using a combination of techniques from archaeology, biochemistry, and ecology. Among their findings is evidence of reproductive behavior in the past that is not seen in modern populations of northern fur seals. ...> Full Article

Entomologist Finds Host of New Aquatic Insect Species in Thailand (5/22/2007)

While in Thailand, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found a treasure-trove of previously unknown information about aquatic insects in the country. In the process, he learned firsthand that a few of these little critters pack quite a punch when they bite. ...> Full Article

Circadian Clocks Explained (5/22/2007)

Circadian clocks regulate the timing of biological functions in almost all higher organisms. Anyone who has flown through several time zones knows the jet lag that can result when this timing is disrupted. ...> Full Article

Chromosomes Of Genghis Khan (5/21/2007)

Approximately 16 million Asian men can consider themselves to be Genghis Khan's descendants, but there are no such men among the Russian population. These conclusions were made by Russian geneticists and their Polish colleagues, who had investigated Y-chromosomes with representatives of 18 nations of Northern Eurasia. ...> Full Article