tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2690689504128275562024-02-18T23:24:23.323-08:00Carnivores and Super PredatorsEric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.comBlogger630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-53718483918926062492017-04-30T13:01:00.001-07:002017-04-30T13:01:12.548-07:00The Minds Big Bang:Liam Neeson(narrator) (full documentary)HD<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wdgqm82-I0o" width="480"></iframe>Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-73569779695115740982016-04-10T09:55:00.003-07:002021-06-20T15:30:36.782-07:00How extinct humans left their mark on us<span class="byline__name">By Helen Briggs</span>
<span class="byline__title">BBC News</span>
<br />
<div class="story-body__mini-info-list-and-share">
<ul class="mini-info-list">
<li class="mini-info-list__item"> <div class="date date--v2" data-datetime="18 March 2016" data-seconds="1458265784" data-timestamp-inserted="true">
18 March 2016</div>
</li>
<li class="mini-info-list__item"><span class="mini-info-list__section-desc off-screen">From the section </span><a class="mini-info-list__section" data-entityid="section-label" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science_and_environment">Science & Environment</a></li>
<div class="story-body__introduction">
Most people in the world share 2-4% of DNA with Neanderthals while a few inherited genes from Denisovans, a study confirms. </div>
Denisovan
DNA lives on only in Pacific island dwellers, while Neanderthal genes
are more widespread, researchers report in the journal <a class="story-body__link-external" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a>.<br />
Meanwhile, some parts of our genetic code show little trace of our extinct cousins.<br />
They include hundreds of genes involved in brain development and language.<br />
"These
are big, truly interesting regions," said co-researcher Dr Joshua Akey,
an expert on human evolutionary genetics from the University of
Washington Medicine, US.<br />
"It will be a long, hard slog to fully
understand the genetic differences between humans, Denisovans and
Neanderthals in these regions and the traits they influence." <br />
<h2 class="story-body__crosshead">
Siberia cave</h2>
Studies
of nuclear DNA (the instructions to build a human) are particularly
useful in the case of Denisovans, which are largely missing from the
fossil record.<br />
The prehistoric species was discovered less than a
decade ago through genetic analysis of a finger bone unearthed in a cave
in northern Siberia. <br />
<br />
<figure class="media-landscape has-caption full-width">
<span class="image-and-copyright-container">
</span></figure><figure class="media-landscape has-caption full-width"><span class="image-and-copyright-container">
<span class="off-screen">Image copyright</span>
<span class="story-image-copyright">BENCE VIOLA</span>
</span>
<figcaption class="media-caption">
<span class="off-screen">Image caption</span>
<span class="media-caption__text">
The Neanderthal remains were found in a cave in Siberia
</span>
</figcaption>
</figure> Substantial
amounts of Denisovan DNA have been detected in the genomes of only a
handful of modern-day human populations so far. <br />
<a class="story-body__link" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjT5J-3kMjLAhXJwxQKHaiPCWIQFggqMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fscience-environment-19423147&usg=AFQjCNGTCzgopjfi2nLs5YnKkO6runL_5A&bvm=bv.117218890,d.bGs">DNA of girl from Denisova cave gives up genetic secrets - BBC</a><br />
"The
genes that we found of Denisovans are only in this one part of the
world [Oceania] that's very far away from that Siberian cave," Dr Akey
told BBC News.<br />
Where the ancestors of modern humans might have had physical contact with Denisovans is a matter of debate, he added. <br />
Denisovans
may have encountered early humans somewhere in South East Asia and,
eventually, some of their descendants arrived on the islands north of
Australia.<br />
Meanwhile, humans repeatedly ran into Neanderthals as they spread across Eurasia.<br />
"We
still carry a little bit of their DNA today," said Dr Akey. "Even
though these groups are extinct their DNA lives on in modern humans."<br />
<h2 class="story-body__crosshead">
Genetic ancestry</h2>
The
research was carried out by several scientists, including Svante Paabo
of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology.<br />
They found that all non-African populations inherited about 1.5-4% of their genomes from Neanderthals.<br />
However,
Melanesians were the only population that also had significant
Denisovan genetic ancestry, representing between 1.9% and 3.4% of their
genome. <br />
"I think that people (and Neanderthals and Denisovans)
liked to wander," said Benjamin Vernot of the University of Washington,
who led the project. <br />
"And yes, studies like this can help us track where they wandered."Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-46569489016785599852016-04-10T09:38:00.001-07:002016-04-10T09:38:58.674-07:00Chinese researchers have genetically modified human embryos—yet again<h1 itemprop="headline">
http://qz.com</h1>
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<div class="byline item-meta-row">
<h5>
Written by<a class="author-name" data-index="0" href="http://qz.com/author/akshatqz/"> Akshat Rathi</a> </h5>
</div>
<div class="item-obsession item-meta-row">
<a href="http://qz.com/on/life-as-laboratory/">Life as Laboratory</a>
</div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
<span class="timestamp" itemprop="datePublished">April 09, 2016</span></div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
<span class="timestamp" itemprop="datePublished"> </span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Less than a year ago, when a group of leading
researchers was calling for a moratorium on the use of a revolutionary
technology, Chinese researchers <a href="http://qz.com/389494/chinese-researchers-are-the-first-to-genetically-modify-a-human-embryo-and-many-scientists-think-theyve-gone-too-far/" target="_blank">shocked the world</a>
by using it to genetically modify human embryos. The worry was that
unfettered access to the technology might enable such embryos to become
fully grown humans, who will then pass on mutations to all their
offspring. The risk of unintended consequences seemed too great.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Now a different group of Chinese researchers have
again wielded the technology to genetically modify human embryos. This
time, however, the reaction from some scientists is just an annoyed
shrug. Clearly <a href="http://qz.com/574731/2015-was-the-year-when-we-decided-it-was-ok-to-genetically-engineer-human-babies/" target="_blank">a lot happened</a> in the last year for perceptions to change so drastically.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The technology in question is called CRISPR, and
it allows researchers to make genetic modifications with greater
precision than ever before. In 2015, Chinese researchers used CRISPR to
target genes responsible for a blood disorder called β-thalassaemia.
They were only able to replace the defective gene in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13238-015-0153-5/fulltext.html">28 out 71 embryos</a>. Worse still, it left a slew of unintended changes in other parts of the genome.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
In the latest attempt, researchers at Guangzhou
Medical University have gone a step ahead. Instead of trying to correct
mutations that could cause disease, they used CRISPR technology to
insert a genetic mutation which might offer resistance against HIV.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The mutation was targeted in the <i>CCR5 </i>gene, which is responsible for producing a protein that HIV uses to latch on, enter, and infect a human immune cell. If the <i>CCR5</i>
gene were mutated, the logic goes, the HIV virus would not be able to
infect—and thus the mutation would confer resistance to the disease.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The researchers report in the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10815-016-0710-8" target="_blank">Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics</a>
that they were successfully inserted the mutated gene in four out of 26
embryos. And, even in the successful cases, not all copies of the <i>CCR5 </i>gene were modified. In other cases mutations were caused that weren’t intended.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The experiment had been approved by a local ethics committee<span class="s1">, which ensured that the study followed Chinese government guidelines</span>.
All the experimental human embryos were “non-viable,” which means they
would have been unable to become fully grown humans. Such abnormal
embryos are an inevitable part of in-vitro fertilization therapy, where
sometimes two sperms insert their DNA into a single egg.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
“The results are both comforting and disturbing,”
says Peter Donovan of the University of California at Irvine. “The good
news is that the technique worked for this group in the same way that
it did for the first group… an important part of the scientific process
showing it wasn’t a fluke the first time. The salutary lesson is that
there is still much to be learned about gene editing in human embryos
before it is ready for prime time.”</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The rate of failure has made some bioethicists and scientists <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/second-chinese-team-reports-gene-editing-in-human-embryos-1.19718" target="_blank">question the motives</a>
of Chinese researchers who continue to test CRISPR in human embryos.
They argue that, while CRISPR offers greater precision, it still isn’t
ready for testing in human embryos. Others, like Donovan, maintain that
it will be studies using donated human embryos that will give us the
most understanding.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Despite the divided opinion, there is definitely a
change in perception. The first study reporting the genetic
modification of human embryos <a href="http://qz.com/564649/the-pros-and-cons-of-genetically-engineering-your-children/" target="_blank">resulted in a summit</a>
held in November between the science academies of China, the US and the
UK. After days of deliberation, the world’s leading geneticists agreed
that, while no CRISPR-modified embryos should become full human beings,
research using human embryos can continue.</div>
The Chinese group that did the latest work
insists that their “proof-of-concept” may provide solutions to improving
human health. They write, “Despite the significant scientific and
ethical issues involved, however, we believe that it is necessary to
keep developing and improving the technologies for precise genetic
modifications in humans.<br />
<br />
<header class="item-header content-width"><h2>
http://qz.com/</h2>
<h1>
2015 was the year it became OK to genetically engineer babies</h1>
</header><figure class="featured-image size-extra-large "><source media="(min-width: 769px)"></source><source media="(min-width: 321px)"></source><figcaption class="featured-image-caption"></figcaption></figure><br />
<div class="item-meta">
<div class="byline item-meta-row">
<h5>
Written by<a class="author-name" data-index="0" href="http://qz.com/author/akshatqz/"> Akshat Rathi</a><a class="twitter-handle" href="http://twitter.com/AkshatRathi" target="_blank">@AkshatRathi</a></h5>
</div>
<div class="item-obsession item-meta-row">
<a href="http://qz.com/on/life-as-laboratory/">Life as Laboratory</a></div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
<span class="timestamp">December 22, 2015</span></div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
</div>
</div>
<div class="annotatable">
In April of this year, researchers in China published the results of an experiment in <a href="http://qz.com/389494/chinese-researchers-are-the-first-to-genetically-modify-a-human-embryo-and-many-scientists-think-theyve-gone-too-far/">modifying the DNA of human embryos</a>.
Though the embryos they worked on were damaged ones that could not have
grown into living babies, it sent a tremor through the scientific
establishment.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Just a month earlier, a group of leading geneticists had <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/don-t-edit-the-human-germ-line-1.17111" target="_blank">called for a moratorium</a>
on gene-editing in embryos. Since any genetic changes would get passed
on to future generations, they argued, the risk of unintended
consequences was too great. And in November, at a summit in Washington
DC, scientists from across the world agreed that, while <a href="http://qz.com/564649/the-pros-and-cons-of-genetically-engineering-your-children/" target="_blank">research should continue</a>, it’s still too risky to allow any altered embryos to grow into full human beings.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
And, yet, when historians of science look back
decades from now, they may well mark 2015 as the year genetically
engineering humans became acceptable. That’s because, while the world
was paying attention to the gene-editing summit, a more momentous
decision had been made just a month earlier in the UK. There, a
governmental body got ready to hand out licenses for creating a
particular kind of genetically engineered human—using a technique the US
tried and then banned 13 years ago.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
This technique won’t create the fabled “designer
babies” just yet. But the changes made to an embryo will be hereditary,
and thus alter the genetic makeup of all the offspring to follow. The
story of how we got here, and what will come next, is why 2015 will be
remembered as a turning-point.</div>
<br />
<figure class="inline-image alignnone zoomable size-medium" id="image-574793"></figure><br />
<h2>
Just getting better</h2>
<div class="annotatable">
Our ability to do some form of genetic engineering <a href="http://qz.com/410522/dogs-became-our-best-friends-thousands-of-years-earlier-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">goes back 40,000 years</a>. Selective breeding created a tamer and more likable version of a wolf, the common ancestor of all today’s dogs.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Our desire to design better humans is also old. In Plato’s <i>Republic</i>, Socrates calls for a state-run program to get the <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/#SH1e" target="_blank">best citizens to mate</a> so that the population could be improved.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
By the 19th century, the ideology of eugenics—a word not invented by Plato, but <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2762976?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents">coined much later</a>
from the Greek for “good breeding”—had taken such a hold that countries
were passing laws for such programs. Before World War II, 30 states in
the US had passed <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Elkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">some form of eugenics laws</a> that mandated sexual sterilization of those deemed unfit (typically the mentally ill).</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Only after the horror of Hitler’s genocide did
the world recoil from eugenics. Most geneticists never returned to the
idea that biological intervention would build a better society than
social intervention. As Nathaniel Comfort, a professor of history of
medicine, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has-a-long-and-peculiar-history" target="_blank">writes in Aeon</a>,
eugenics survived only in the form of “preventive medicine for genetic
diseases”—such as screening people for them and, occasionally, treating
them with gene therapy.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Not everyone stopped trying. Taking inspiration from Aldous Huxley’s <i>Brave New World</i>, eugenicist Robert Graham created the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank for the super-intelligent. The bank <a href="http://primary.slate.com/articles/life/seed/2001/02/the_genius_babies_and_how_they_grew.html">existed from 1980 to 1999</a> and had some 19 high-IQ donors, including at least one Nobel laureate (William Shockley).</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The resulting “Genius Babies ”—some 200 of
them—are no different from normal people. One of those conceived through
Graham’s sperm bank <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/08/health/genius-sperm-bank/">told CNN</a>, “There’s only so much you can control when it comes to genetics. It all has to do with what you give to your family.”</div>
<br />
<figure class="inline-image alignnone zoomable size-medium" id="image-574793"></figure><br />
<h2>
Beyond our control</h2>
<div class="annotatable">
That comment defines the limits of science today. In the 1970s, we <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7211/full/455290a.html" target="_blank">finally understood</a> how to tweak the genes of microbes, plants and animals to achieve certain traits. But in humans, with the <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/inheritance/observable/" target="_blank">exception of a few things</a>
such as color blindness or tasting certain foods, “designer baby”
traits, such as greater intelligence, taller stature, stronger muscles,
or better memory, are controlled by hundreds of genes, each of which
also perform many other critical functions. Tools that can deal with
such complexity are still a long way off.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
For now, then, the only foreseeable use for
gene-editing is to prevent disease. And the goal is to make genetic
tools good enough to do that without any unintended consequences.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Since 1989, thousands of people have received
experimental gene therapies. Typically these involve the use of a
“vector”—a biological vehicle, such as a virus, that can deliver the
correct copy of a faulty gene to the specific cells in the body affected
by the genetic disorder, such as cancer cells or faulty cells in the
eye.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
While most of these treatments have been safe,
only a few have been effective. China approved the world’s first gene
therapy in 2003 to <a href="http://www.biotecheast.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1058" target="_blank">treat certain kinds of cancers</a>. Europe got its first in 2012 that <a href="http://www.uniqure.com/uploads/Glybera%202pp%20Factsheet_lr.pdf" target="_blank">treats a rare inherited disorder</a> (pdf) affecting the pancreas. The US is likely to get its first gene therapy approved in 2016 to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-05/spark-s-gene-therapy-for-rare-blindness-improved-sight-in-trial" target="_blank">treat a form of blindness</a>.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
None of these therapies, however, have used the latest advance in gene-editing: <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/crispr-dna-editing-2/" target="_blank">CRISPR-Cas9</a>,
a highly precise copy-and-paste tool that allows for the removal and
replacement of individual genes. Since its development in 2012, it has
become an instant favorite among scientists.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
CRISPR-Cas9’s immediate potential lies in curing
single-gene disorders in embryos. Changes made at that stage would
affect every cell in the body and could cure many diseases. We know <a href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002048.htm" target="_blank">some 4,000 such disorders</a>,
and, though each is rare, put together they could change the lives of
millions in the next generation, and keep many more free from those
diseases for all the generations to follow.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
However, the Chinese study earlier this year
showed that we might need something even more precise than CRISPR-Cas9
currently is. Only in one-third of the 86 embryos was the faulty gene
erased as predicted, and even in those cases, CRISPR-Cas9 had also
modified things it wasn’t meant to—the unintended consequences
scientists worry about.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
There is, however, another form of genetic
engineering of human embryos. This is the one that the US tried and then
banned, and that the British government recently opened licensing
applications for. And what’s probably more important for the future of
the debate is how Britain decided the technology works and is safe.</div>
<br />
<figure class="inline-image alignnone zoomable size-medium" id="image-574799"></figure><br />
<h2>
Three-parent child</h2>
<div class="annotatable">
Alana Saarinen was born in the US with three
biological parents. Two of them contribute more than 99% of her genetic
material and the third provides the rest. She is one of only <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28986843" target="_blank">30 or so people</a> in the world who grew from a genetically engineered embryo into a healthy adult.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Sharon and Paul Saarinen had attempted in-vitro
fertilization (IVF) four times, but without success. A likely reason was
that Sharon’s egg cells had faulty mitochondria. These are like
biological batteries within a cell—they play an essential role in
converting your food into the energy that powers your body. Uniquely,
they also have their own DNA (though it’s only some <a href="http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/mitochondrial-dna" target="_blank">37 of the 20,000</a> or so genes that make up the human genome).</div>
<div class="annotatable">
During reproduction, when an egg cell fuses with a
sperm cell, creating the first cell of an embryo, it’s only the DNA in
its nucleus that is a mix of both parents’ DNA. Mitochondria and their
DNA are passed on directly from mother to offspring. Because Sharon
Saarinen’s mitochondria were faulty, she basically needed a mitochondria
transplant in order to conceive.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
That was where the third parent came in. A donor
provided an egg cell, whose nucleus was removed and healthy mitochondria
along with other bits of the cell were transferred to Sharon’s egg. The
egg cell was then mixed with Paul’s sperm cells in a normal IVF
procedure, and the resulting embryo would become Alana Saarinen.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
This technique won’t only help women like Sharon
conceive. In a lot of cases with faulty mitochondria, pregnancies
proceed normally, but the child then turns out to have one of several
mitochondrial diseases, which can lead to <a href="http://www.mitoaction.org/mito-faq">all sorts of problems</a>, from poor growth to autism to diabetes. One in every 5,000 children suffers from one of them.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Mitochondrial replacement therapy like the
Saarinens had is currently the only known way of preventing
mitochondrial diseases. But since they conceived Alana in 2000, only
some 30 or so children have been born using the technique. In 2002, the
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned its use. Apart from ethical
concerns about scientists “playing God,” there was a scientific worry
too. We had never attempted to edit the “germ line”—the DNA that is
transferred from one generation to another—and the risks were unknown.
(About 10% of the pregnancies that resulted from this treatment had
complications, but it wasn’t clear whether the procedure was to blame.)</div>
<h2>
Selfish genes</h2>
<div class="annotatable">
The FDA ban meant that US women with faulty mitochondria were left <a href="http://nyscf.org/pdfs2/FAQ_on_Mitochondrial_Replacement_Therapy.pdf" target="_blank">with difficult choices</a>
(pdf). They could choose not to have children, or undergo IVF and pick
the fertilized embryo with the fewest defective mitochondria—taking a
gamble on whether their child would develop mitochondrial disease.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
But nearly a decade later the UK government’s
Human Fertilization and Embryology Agency (HFEA) took up the case. In
2012, after taking a detailed look at the results of studies on animals
and humans, it deemed that mitochondrial replacement therapy was “not
unsafe”—meaning that the benefits of curing mitochondrial disease would
outweigh the risks of the procedure.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
The interesting thing was what the HFEA did next. In Sept. 2012, it launched a <a href="http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6896.html" target="_blank">public consultation,</a>
creating a website that explained both the risks and benefits, and
holding public events to do the same. Then it conducted a survey and
asked people to send in their comments online. After the public had
shown broad support for the therapy—and despite <a href="http://blogs.kentplace.org/bioethicsproject/2015/02/04/mitochondrial-replacement-therapy-beginning-end/" target="_blank">stiff opposition</a>
from scholarly groups and religious groups alike—the HFEA spent two
years taking the necessary steps to get the regulations discussed in
parliament. In February, MPs agreed to allow the use of the therapy
under strict guidelines. In October, the process for handing out
licenses began.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
We already use genetic engineering to create
climate-resistant crops and drug-producing bacteria. Now one of the
world’s most scientifically advanced countries—and, fittingly, the
birthplace of IVF—has agreed that genetically modified humans, too, are
sometimes not just OK, but desirable. This is what makes 2015 an
historic year.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Based on past progress, it is likely that genetic
enhancements to humans will become a reality step by step. Just like
mitochondrial replacement therapy, they will first appear for a very
narrow purpose, such as curing single-gene disorders, and then, likely
over many decades, we might reach the stage of creating those fabled
designer babies.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
That gives us enough time to deliberate the
implications of each step. When our decisions will affect generations of
humans to come, it is important we use that time well. The process that
HFEA designed to win public and political support is a model worth
emulating. If each step were to get the same scrutiny that mitochondrial
replacement therapy got, genetically modified humans could become as
normal as genetically modified crops and bacteria are today—and, barring
the occasional controversy, as widely accepted.</div>
<span class="s1"><i>Corrected Dec. 23: An
earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Sharon Saarinen’s
nucleus was implanted in a donor’s egg. It also said that HFEA began
handing out licenses in October, but in fact it then began the process
of handing them out.</i></span><br />
<h2>
http://qz.com/</h2>
<h1>
The pros and cons of genetically engineering your children</h1>
<br />
<figure class="featured-image size-extra-large "><source media="(min-width: 769px)"></source><figcaption class="featured-image-caption"></figcaption></figure><br />
<div class="item-meta">
<div class="byline item-meta-row">
<h5>
Written by<a class="author-name" data-index="0" href="http://qz.com/author/akshatqz/"> Akshat Rathi</a><a class="twitter-handle" href="http://twitter.com/AkshatRathi" target="_blank">@AkshatRathi</a></h5>
</div>
<div class="item-obsession item-meta-row">
<a href="http://qz.com/on/life-as-laboratory/">Life as Laboratory</a></div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
<span class="timestamp">December 03, 2015</span></div>
<div class="item-timestamp item-meta-row">
</div>
</div>
<div class="annotatable">
From time to time, science troubles philosophers
with difficult ethical questions. But none has been as difficult as
considering permanently altering the genetic code of future generations.
At a meeting that began on Dec. 1 in Washington DC, the world’s leading
gene-editing experts met with ethicists, lawyers, and interested
members of the public to decide whether it should be done.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
Gene-editing tools have existed since 1975, when a
meeting of a similar kind was held to discuss the future of genetic
technology. But recent developments have made the technology safe enough
to consider turning science fiction into reality. In fact, in April, <a href="http://qz.com/389494/chinese-researchers-are-the-first-to-genetically-modify-a-human-embryo-and-many-scientists-think-theyve-gone-too-far/" target="_blank">Chinese researchers announced</a><b> </b>that
they had conducted experiments to remove genes of an inheritable
disease in human embryos (embryos that were alive but damaged, so they
could not have become babies).</div>
<div class="annotatable">
So the stakes are high. By eliminating “bad”
genes from sperm and egg cells—called the “germline”—these tools have
the potential to permanently wipe out diseases caused by single
mutations in genes, such as cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, or
Tay-Sachs.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
At the same time, there is huge uncertainty about what could go wrong if seemingly troubling genes are eliminated.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
One of the key researchers in the field is
Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been
touted for a Nobel Prize for the development of CRISPR-Cas9, a highly
precise copy-paste genetic tool. In the build-up to the meeting, Doudna
made her <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/528S6a" target="_blank">concerns clear in Nature</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“Human-germline editing for the
purposes of creating genome-modified humans should not proceed at this
time, partly because of the unknown social consequences, but also
because the technology and our knowledge of the human genome are simply
not ready to do so safely.”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
Her sentiments were <a href="http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=9000" target="_blank">echoed in a report</a>
released before the meeting by the Center for Genetics and Society.
They believe that research in genetic tools must advance, but only
through therapy for adults (where genetic modifications are targeted at
some cells in the body but not passed on to kids, such as in <a href="http://qz.com/517266/were-a-step-closer-to-curing-some-genetic-diseases-with-a-single-treatment/" target="_blank">curing a form of inherited blindness</a>). The report continues:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“But using the same techniques to
modify embryos in order to make permanent, irreversible changes to
future generations and to our common genetic heritage—the human
germline, as it is known—is far more problematic.”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
Consider sickle-cell anemia, an occasionally
fatal genetic disorder. Its genes, though clearly harmful, have
persisted and spread because, while having two copies of the sickle-cell
gene causes anemia, having just one copy happens to provide protection
against malaria, one of the most deadly diseases in human history. Had
we not known about their benefits, eliminating sickle-cell genes would
have proved to be a bad idea.</div>
<div class="annotatable">
More importantly, there is a worry that once you
allow for designer babies you go down a slippery slope. Emily Smith
Beitiks, disability researcher at the University of California, San
Francisco, <a href="http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-11-should-our-children-be-genetically-engineered" target="_blank">said recently</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“These proposed applications raise
social justice questions and put us at risk of reviving
eugenics—controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of ‘desirable’
heritable characteristics. Who gets to decide what diversity looks like
and who is valued?”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
But the history of science shows that it is hard
to keep such a cat in the bag. Once developed, technologies have a way
of finding their way into the hands of those who desire to use them.
That worries George Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, who
has been a strong voice in this debate since the beginning. <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/528S7a" target="_blank">In Nature</a>, he writes:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“Banning human-germlined editing
could put a damper on the best medical research and instead drive the
practice underground to black markets and uncontrolled medical tourism,
which are fraught with much greater risk and misapplication.”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
And many believe that the risks of gene-editing
are not that high anyway. Nathaniel Comfort, a historian of medicine at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has-a-long-and-peculiar-history" target="_blank">writes in Aeon</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“The dishes do not come à la carte. If you believe that made-to-order babies are possible, you oversimplify how genes work.”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
That is because abilities, such as intelligence,
height, or personality traits, involve thousands of genes. So there may
be some things that you cannot genetically enhance much, and certainly
not safely. And even knowingly changing the human genome is not as big a
deal as some make it out to be, Church notes:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
“Offspring do not consent to their
parents’ intentional exposure to mutagenic sources that alter the germ
line, including chemotherapy, high altitude, and alcohol—nor to
decisions that reduce the prospects for future generations, such as
misdirected economic investment and environmental mismanagement.”</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="annotatable">
The meeting ended on Dec. 3, and the committee of organizers—10 scientists and two bioethicists—<a href="http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12032015a" target="_blank">came to a conclusion</a>
on the debate. They believe that the promises of germline editing are
too great to scupper future developments. They endorse that research
should continue in non-human embryos and “if, in the process of
research, early human embryos … undergo gene editing, the modified cells
should not be used to establish a pregnancy.” That is because the
committee believes that we neither know enough about safety issues to
allow any clinical application, nor enough about how society will
respond to the use of this technology in humans.</div>
And, yet, perhaps the the last word on the debate
should go to a woman in the audience at the meeting. Her child died
only six days old after torturous seizures caused by a genetic ailment.
She <a href="http://us11.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=b0c0e387e2" target="_blank">implored the research community</a>, “If you have the skills and the knowledge to eliminate these diseases, then freakin’ do it!”<br />
<h1 class="title" href="http://mashable.com/2016/03/24/minimal-genome-discovery/">
Scientists have synthesized a 'minimal genome' with only genes necessary for life</h1>
<div class="article-info">
<span class="byline basic">By Chelsea Harvey</span><time datetime="Thu, 24 Mar 2016 18:00:00 +0000">Mar 24, 2016</time></div>
<div class="article-info">
<time datetime="Thu, 24 Mar 2016 18:00:00 +0000"> </time></div>
<span style="line-height: 1.5;">A pioneering accomplishment in the
field of genetic research could help scientists gain new insights into
the very definition of life. The </span><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aad6253" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">new research</a><span style="line-height: 1.5;">, published Thursday in the journal </span><i style="line-height: 1.5;">Science</i><span style="line-height: 1.5;">,
describes the synthetic creation of a “minimal genome” — a cell
containing only the genes absolutely required to keep itself alive.</span><br />
With just 473 genes, it’s the smallest genome of any living, dividing
cell found in nature and may provide important insights into the
fundamental genetic requirements for life.<br />
<div class="see-also move-option" contenteditable="false">
SEE ALSO: <a data-crackerjax="#post-slider" href="http://mashable.com/2015/06/11/creativity-psychiatric-disorders/">There may be a genetic link between creativity and mental illness</a></div>
The idea of designing and studying a “minimal genome” is a concept
that’s fascinated scientists for decades. In fact, unlocking the secrets
of the genome has been a preoccupation of genetic researchers since the
first genome sequencing was performed on a bacterium in 1995 — the
event that ultimately led to this week’s breakthrough, according to the
new study’s authors.<br />
<figure class="image"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="m!c1c2"></a>
<div class="microcontent-wrapper">
<div class="microcontent-shares" data-description="" data-fragment="m!c1c2" data-image="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2EzL2JhY3Rlcml1bXN0Ljk4ZDJmLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/4b4d4de7/57b/bacteriumstudy.jpg" data-url="">
</div>
<span class="lightbox-expand for-lightbox"><img class="" data-caption="Researchers have designed and synthesized a minimal bacterial genome, containing only the genes necessary for life." data-credit-name="C. Bickel/Science" data-credit-provider="custom type" data-fragment="m!c1c2" data-image="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2EzL2JhY3Rlcml1bXN0Ljk4ZDJmLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/4b4d4de7/57b/bacteriumstudy.jpg" data-micro="1" data-width="660" height="300" src="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2EzL2JhY3Rlcml1bXN0Ljk4ZDJmLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/4b4d4de7/57b/bacteriumstudy.jpg" width="400" /></span>
</div>
<figcaption class="image-caption">Researchers have designed and synthesized a minimal bacterial<br />
genome, containing only the genes necessary for life.</figcaption><div class="image-credit">
Image: C. Bickel/Science</div>
</figure>“This
is a study that had its origins a little over 20 years ago in 1995,
when this institute sequenced the very first genome in history,
Haemophilus influenzae,” said the new paper’s senior author J. Craig
Venter, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, which specializes in
genomic research, during a Wednesday teleconference.<br />
Later that same year, the institute also sequenced the genome of a
second type of bacteria, Mycoplasma genitalium. These breakthroughs
allowed for the first genomic comparisons between two different species,
Venter said.<br />
Venter is most famous for his role as a leader of the team that first sequenced the human genome in 2000.<br />
“[My colleagues] and myself were discussing the philosophy of these
differences in the genomes and decided the only way to answer basic
questions about life would be to get to a minimal genome, and probably
the only way to do that would be by trying to synthesize a genome,”
Venter said.<br />
<figure class="image"><img class="" data-credit-name="Giphy" data-credit-provider="custom type" data-width="400" height="300" src="http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0LzkzL0ROQV9HSUYuNjgzYWEuZ2lmCnAJdGh1bWIJMTIwMHg5NjAwPg/8af1a60d/939/DNA_GIF.gif" width="400" /><br />
<div class="image-credit">
Image: Giphy</div>
</figure>“And that started our 20-year quest to do this.”<br />
The reason that researchers must synthesize, or essentially design
their own, minimal genome is because just about every living organism we
know of contains more genes than are actually necessary for its basic
survival. Even the simplest bacteria contain extra, nonessential genes
that are related to its growth, development and ability to react to its
environment, but that aren’t technically required to keep the cell
alive. <br />
So in order to get down to a truly minimal genome, scientists must
take an existing genetic sequence and pare it down themselves, cutting
away all the nonessential genes until they end up with only the ones
that are absolutely essential<div class="title" href="http://mashable.com/2016/03/24/minimal-genome-discovery/">
<br /></div>
They
do this by creating synthetic genomes — genomes that are designed and
chemically built from the ground up using our existing knowledge of an
organism’s genetic information. <br />
Along the way, scientists can add or delete genetic information as
they see fit. It’s the same basic principle that’s used in genetic
engineering research. But in the case of a minimal genome, the goal is
to slice off as much unnecessary genetic information as possible without
changing or adding anything else to the organism’s genome.<br />
And that’s just what Venter and his colleagues set out to do.<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.5;"></span><br />
<h2 class="h2">
DNA minimalism</h2>
<span style="line-height: 1.5;">They started with the genome of a
type of bacteria known as Mycoplasma mycoides, a parasite normally found
in cows and goats. In 2010, the group </span><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/329/5987/52" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">succeeded in building</a><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> the complete M. mycoides genome from scratch and transplanting it into another cell.</span><br />
<figure class="image"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="m!3a9f"></a>
<div class="microcontent-wrapper">
<div class="microcontent-shares" data-description="" data-fragment="m!3a9f" data-image="http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2FmL1ZlbnRlck1lZGFsLmQ0NWNiLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/7d827bc8/5a0/VenterMedal.jpg" data-url="">
</div>
<span class="lightbox-expand for-lightbox"><img class="" data-caption="J. Craig Venter receives the National Medal of Science on October 7, 2009 in Washington, DC." data-credit-name="Getty Images" data-credit-provider="custom type" data-fragment="m!3a9f" data-image="http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2FmL1ZlbnRlck1lZGFsLmQ0NWNiLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/7d827bc8/5a0/VenterMedal.jpg" data-micro="1" data-width="1000" height="278" src="http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0L2FmL1ZlbnRlck1lZGFsLmQ0NWNiLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/7d827bc8/5a0/VenterMedal.jpg" width="400" /></span>
</div>
<figcaption class="image-caption">J. Craig Venter receives the National Medal of Science on<br />
October 7, 2009 in Washington, DC.</figcaption><div class="image-credit">
Image: Getty Images</div>
</figure>This time around, they used a variety of methods to whittle the genome down before transplanting it.<br />
To start, the researchers divided the bacterium’s genome into eight
different segments that could be individually altered and tested — just
to make the experiments a little more manageable. They then applied a
handful of techniques to peel away the nonessential genes.<br />
They call this their “design-build-test” approach.<br />
First, they applied their basic knowledge of genetics and
biochemistry to infer which genes might be safe to remove — but this
technique did not produce viable cells. <br />
The researchers then conducted a series of experiments in which they
inserted bits of foreign genetic information — called transposons — into
the genome in order to disrupt the functions of certain genes and
figure out which ones the cell could do without. This process helped
them whittle down the genome until no more genes could be removed.<br />
Along the way, the researchers were able to divide the bacterium’s
genes into three major categories: essential, nonessential and
quasi-essential, meaning they weren’t absolutely required for life but
were necessary to help the cell grow at a healthy pace.<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="it-allowed-them-to"></a>
<blockquote class="microcontent-wrapper pullquote">
<div class="microcontent-shares" data-description="It allowed them to discover how much we don’t know, even about the core sections of the genome" data-fragment="it-allowed-them-to" data-url="">
</div>
<span class="microcontent">
It allowed them to discover how much we don’t know, even about the core sections of the genome
</span>
</blockquote>
Venter and his colleagues also discovered that the genome contained a
number of redundant genes — pairs of genes that performed the same
function in the cell. These genes made the whittling process a little
confusing at first — if one of the redundant genes was removed (but not
the other), the cell would continue functioning, tricking the
researchers into believing it was a nonessential gene.<br />
A great deal of trial and error was required in order for the researchers to classify all the genes.<br />
Finally, though, they reached a point where no more genes could be removed without killing the cell. <br />
The result is the smallest genome ever recorded in a self-replicating
— that means alive and able to divide — cell. It contains just 473
genes, all of which are either directly required to keep the cell alive
or to enable it to grow and divide fast enough to be practical for the
researchers’ experiments.<br />
<figure class="image"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="m!6074"></a>
<div class="microcontent-wrapper">
<div class="microcontent-shares" data-description="" data-fragment="m!6074" data-image="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0LzliL1ZlbnRlcjE5OTcuZTliOTYuanBnCnAJdGh1bWIJMTIwMHg5NjAwPg/14e7047c/cfa/Venter1997.jpg" data-url="">
</div>
<span class="lightbox-expand for-lightbox"><img class="" data-caption="J. Craig Venter poses before a gene map of a flu-causing bacterium in his Rockville, Md., office, March 12, 1997." data-credit-name="Ruth Fremson/AP" data-credit-provider="custom type" data-fragment="m!6074" data-image="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0LzliL1ZlbnRlcjE5OTcuZTliOTYuanBnCnAJdGh1bWIJMTIwMHg5NjAwPg/14e7047c/cfa/Venter1997.jpg" data-micro="1" data-width="1000" height="267" src="http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE2LzAzLzI0LzliL1ZlbnRlcjE5OTcuZTliOTYuanBnCnAJdGh1bWIJMTIwMHg5NjAwPg/14e7047c/cfa/Venter1997.jpg" width="400" /></span>
</div>
<figcaption class="image-caption">J. Craig Venter poses before a gene map of a flu-causing<br />
bacterium in his Rockville, Md., office, March 12, 1997.</figcaption><div class="image-credit">
Image: Ruth Fremson/AP</div>
</figure>Interestingly,
about a third of the resulting genome consists of genes with unknown
biological functions. Most of the known essential genes perform
functions related to expressing genes, passing down genetic information
from one generation to the next, or performing essential functions in
the cell’s membrane and cytosol, so the scientists predict that the
unknown genes will have similar jobs — we just don’t know what yet.<br />
“One of the great findings but also the great caveats of this work is
that it allowed them to discover how much we don’t know, even about the
core sections of the genome,” said <a href="http://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/adam-arkin" target="_blank">Adam Arkin</a>, director of the Synthetic Biology Institute at the University of California Berkeley, in a statement. <br />
That said, Venter also noted that the concept of a minimal cell is context-dependent.<br />
The specific genes that an organism requires to survive — even an
organism as simple as a bacterial cell — depend on what kind of
environment the cell is living in and what kinds of nutrients are
available to it.<br />
And, of course, one species’ minimal genome would likely differ significantly from that of another species.<br />
With that in mind, exploring different forms of minimal genomes could have important industrial applications, said <a href="http://jcvi.org/cms/about/bios/dgibson" target="_blank">Daniel Gibson</a>, another of the study’s authors and another scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute, during the same teleconference.<br />
Because these cells are so simple, devote all their energy to
essential functions and are subject to very few genetic mutations, they
are “straightforward to engineer” and could provide helpful insights
into more complex types of biosynthesis in the future, he said.<br />
Still, there’s plenty of work left to be done before the study of minimal genomes may yield practical applications.<br />
“The major limitation is that this is the beginning of a very long road,” said <a href="http://www.chemistry.ucla.edu/directory/kosuri-sriram" target="_blank">Sriram Kosuri</a>, an assistant professor of biochemistry at UCLA, in a statement.<br />
“It's not as if this new minimal genome will automatically lead to
either fundamental insights or industrial applications immediately. That
said, they've created a self-replicating biological organism that might
be a better starting point for such scientific and engineering goals
than continuing to study natural systems."<br />
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<h1 class="h-biggest">
Scientists May Have Found the Key to Curing Autism, Cancer and HIV</h1>
<h2 class="h-big h-slacker h-light h-normal">
Gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 has made it possible to isolate RNA in living cells for the first time.</h2>
<img alt="160323_dna" class="img-responsive block-generous" data-size="rectangle652" height="304" src="http://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/978a768/2147483647/thumbnail/475x361%3E/quality/85/?url=%2Fcmsmedia%2F5f%2Fe7%2F4fa3634d42c9b1f9053cead26075%2F160323-dna-stock.jpg" title="Getty" width="400" /></header>
<br />
<br />
<div class="t t-dim" style="margin-top: -20px;">
Mutations in RNA are linked to autism, cancer, and fragile X syndrome.</div>
<div class="drawer block-generous">
<div class="drawer_main bar-sep-overunder t-small">
<span class="item drawer_paddingTop">
By
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/topics/author/rachel-dicker" rel="author">Rachel Dicker</a>
</span>
<time class="t-small item drawer_marginTop" datetime="2016-03-23" itemprop="datePublished">
March 23, 2016, at 1:03 p.m.
</time>
<span class="thumb-middled-right right t-small t-subdued drawer_trigger drawer_paddingTop" id="bylineSocialMore">+ More</span>
</div>
</div>
<br />
The cures for some of the world's most perplexing diseases might be closer than we think.<br />
According to a study published in <a class="" href="http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674%2816%2930204-5" target="_blank" title="Link: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)30204-5">Cell</a>, researchers
have determined how to isolate and edit messenger RNA that carries
genetic instructions from the cell's nucleus to make new proteins for
the first time using gene-editing tool Clustered Regularly Interspaced
Short Palindromic Repeats, also known as <a class="" href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2015/12/02/genetic-revolution-brings-challenges-controversy">CRISPR-Cas9.</a><br />
<br />
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<a class="link-subdued" href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/2016-02-08/nih-wont-fund-human-embryo-gene-editing-but-others-will">
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<div style="padding-left: 15px;">
<div class="t-smaller t-taut t-light t-upper">
RELATED</div>
<h3 class="h h-slack">
NIH Won't Fund Human Embryo Gene-Editing, But Others Will</h3>
</div>
</a>
</div>
They have previously used this tool to remove HIV from human immune
cells and shut down HIV replication permanently, according to a study
published in <a class="" href="http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22555" target="_blank" title="Link: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22555">Nature</a> in March.<br />
“It
opens up a new area of thinking about manipulating genes and disease,”
Gene Yeo, associate professor of molecular medicine at UCSD and a senior
author of the study, told <a class="" href="http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/tool-could-snip-genes-to-treat-cancer-autism-160317.htm" target="_blank" title="Link: http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/tool-could-snip-genes-to-treat-cancer-autism-160317.htm">Discovery</a>. “In
many diseases you cannot edit the genome, you can break the genome into
pieces. But here we are doing transcription engineering or editing.
That’s quite exciting.”<br />
The gene-editing technique could lead to
treatments for diseases that are linked to defective RNA and have
previously been untreatable. These include certain cancers, fragile X
syndrome and autism.<br />
[<b>READ:</b> <a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2016-03-22/fda-orders-warning-labels-on-prescription-narcotic-painkillers" target="_blank" title="Link: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2016-03-22/fda-orders-warning-labels-on-prescription-narcotic-painkillers">FDA Orders Warning Labels on Prescription Narcotic Painkillers</a>]
<br />
CRISPR-Cas9 can also potentially be used to edit genes that determine
our physical features and maybe even our personality, leading to
ethical questions about how to <a class="" href="http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/10/09/gene-editing-research-spurs-debate-over-promise-vs-ethics">responsibly use the technology</a>.<br />
Discovery reports that the National Academy of Sciences is working on a set of ethical rules for this burgeoning field. </footer><div class="title" href="http://mashable.com/2016/03/24/minimal-genome-discovery/">
<br /></div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-71609091789487674412016-03-14T21:28:00.002-07:002016-03-14T21:28:54.684-07:00How Gut Bacteria Are Shaking Up Cancer Research<br />
<br />
http://www.bloomberg.com/<br />
<br />
<a class="author-link" data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="author_link" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AOdzWMcDBhA/makiko-kitamura" itemprop="author" rel="author">Makiko Kitamura </a> <br />
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Roche says it plans to study role of microbiome in cancer</div>
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Vedanta expects more drug companies to enter the field</div>
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Top
scientists at Roche Holding AG and AstraZeneca Plc are sizing up
potential allies in the fight against cancer: the trillions of bacteria
that live in the human body.<br />
"Five years ago, if you had asked me
about bacteria in your gut playing an important role in your systemic
immune response, I probably would have laughed it off," <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.01" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-chen-m-d-ph-d-4653842" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to profile">Daniel Chen</a>,
head of cancer immunotherapy research at Roche’s Genentech division,
said in a phone interview. "Most of us immunologists now believe that
there really is an important interaction there."<br />
Two recent
studies published in the journal Science have intrigued Chen and others
who are developing medicines called immunotherapies that stimulate the
body’s ability to fight tumors.<br />
In
November, University of Chicago researchers wrote that giving mice
Bifidobacterium, which normally resides in the gastrointestinal tract,
was <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.02" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26541606" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to abstract">as effective</a>
as an immunotherapy in controlling the growth of skin cancer. Combining
the two practically eliminated tumor growth. In the second study,
scientists in France found that some bacterial species <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.03" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26541610" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to abstract">activated</a> a response to immunotherapy, which didn’t occur without the microbes.<br />
<h3>
Human Microbiome</h3>
That’s increased drugmakers’ interest in the <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.04" href="http://www.janssen.com/human-microbiome-institute" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to J&J’s Human Microbiome Institute">human microbiome</a>
-- the universe of roughly 100 trillion good and bad bacteria, fungi
and viruses that live on and inside the body. Roche is already
undertaking basic research in the field and plans to investigate the
microbiome’s potential for cancer treatment, Chen said.<br />
"Certainly,
we are already scanning the space for interesting opportunities as the
science continues to emerge," he said. "We are very interested in
testing these in a controlled setting."<br />
Some experienced investors
are skeptical and see the possibility of an approved product for cancer
to be at least five years away.<br />
"To therapeutically influence the microbiome long-term in humans is a big hurdle," said <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.05" href="http://www.forbion.com/#/team/sander-van-deventer-md-ph-d" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to profile">Sander van Deventer</a>,
managing partner at venture-capital firm Forbion Capital Partners. "The
microbiome is very stubborn. Everything we’ve done so far has only had a
temporary effect."<br />
<h3>
Nestle’s Investment</h3>
Earlier in his
career, van Deventer chaired the department of gastroenterology and
hepatology at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the first clinic
in the world to perform fecal transplants to fight hospital infection
Clostridium difficile with good bacteria. Forbion hasn’t yet invested in
any microbiome biotechs, "but we’re looking at all of them all the
time," he said.<br />
Efforts are under way to turn bacteria into
regulated pharmaceutical products to treat illnesses of the gut, where
the microbes reside.<br />
Nestle SA last January <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="recirc" data-tracker-label="inline_link.06" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-06/nestle-invests-in-developer-of-drugs-based-on-gut-microorganisms" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" title="Nestle Invests in Developer of Drugs Based on Gut Microorganisms">invested</a>
$65 million in ambridge, Massachusetts-based Seres Therapeutics Inc.,
which is developing a treatment for Clostridium difficile, which affects
the digestive system. That follows early efforts to harness the
microbiome’s benefits, which spawned probiotic foods and supplements as
well as transplants of healthy bacteria.<br />
The promise in cancer
will draw more large drugmakers into exploring the human microbiome,
said Bernat Olle, chief executive officer of <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.07" href="http://www.vedantabio.com/" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to website">Vedanta Biosciences</a>, a Boston-based startup.<br />
<h3>
Treatment Potential</h3>
"That’s
the sense we get based on how we’re being approached by new pharma
groups and how serious they seem to be about wanting to enter the
field,” Olle said in a phone interview. Vedanta last year announced a
license agreement with <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.08" href="http://tinyurl.com/zphpl83" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to statement">Johnson & Johnson</a> on its experimental microbiome drug for inflammatory bowel disease.<br />
Another startup, 4D Pharma Plc, in November <a data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="nav" data-tracker-label="inline_link.09" href="http://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/4dpharma/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=779&newsid=603725" itemprop="StoryLink" itemscope="itemscope" target="_blank" title="Link to statement">said</a>
it had discovered a bacterium that produces a response comparable to
that of an immunotherapy in animal tests for breast and lung cancers.
The London-listed company plans to start trials in patients by the end
of this year. To support research in autoimmune and neurological
diseases, in addition to cancer, the company has raised over 100 million
pounds ($140 million) from investors over the last two years, CEO
Duncan Peyton said in a phone interview.<br />
French biotech Enterome
is taking a different approach: developing treatments based on bacterial
secretions. Enterome plans to close a private financing round of about
15 million euros this month, according to CEO Pierre Belichard. More
news may be on the way.<br />
<h3>
‘Active Discussions’</h3>
"We are in active discussions with the usual suspects in the immunotherapy space," Belichard said in an interview in London.<br />
Those
active in the field include a wide range of pharma companies including
AstraZeneca, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and Merck & Co.<br />
"Personally,
I think it’s a fascinating area," Susan Galbraith, head of oncology
research at AstraZeneca, said in an interview in London.<br />
Studies
have shown that immunotherapies have varying degrees of success even in
genetically identical mice, and the Science study from Chicago suggests
that the diversity of the microbiome may help explain that variability,
Galbraith said. AstraZeneca isn’t conducting its own research in the
area and would prefer to wait to see evidence in human trials before
getting involved, she said.<br />
The sheer number of bacteria, some of
which could actually switch off an immune response, and the question of
how much bacteria is needed, make it a complex area of research, Roche’s
Chen said. It’s possible that the same bacteria could induce both
harmful and helpful responses, depending on the patient, he said.<br />
Still, "it’s one of the most interesting developments we’ve seen in science over the last several years," he said.Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-73895886486305123972016-03-14T21:25:00.000-07:002016-03-18T01:01:39.721-07:00Oldest ever human genome sequence may rewrite human history<br />
<br />
<section class="article-section">
<div class="section-indicator news">
<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article_type/daily-news/">Daily news </a></div>
<div class="published-date">
14 March 2016 </div>
</section>
<br />
<h1 class="article-title">
https://www.newscientist.com/</h1>
<br />
<figure class="article-img-inline img-800 case5"><img alt="Cavers" class="size-full-size wp-image-2080560" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/15_sima-de-los-huesos-9_-credit-javier-trueba-madrid-scientific-films-1200x800.jpg" width="400" /><div class="image-details">
<br />
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">What secrets lurk in the pit of bones?</figcaption><br />
<div class="credit">
Javier Trueba, Madrid Scientific Films</div>
</div>
</figure>
The oldest ever human nuclear DNA to be reconstructed and sequenced
reveals Neanderthals in the making – and the need for a possible rewrite
of our own origins.<br />
The 430,000-year-old DNA comes from mysterious early human fossils found in Spain’s <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27611-csi-stone-age-was-430000-year-old-hominin-murdered/">Sima de los Huesos</a>, or “pit of bones”.<br />
The fossils <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25761-neanderthals-evolved-their-teeth-before-big-brains/">look like they come from ancestors of the Neanderthals</a>, which evolved some 100,000 years later. But <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029462-600-oldest-human-genome-dug-up-in-spains-pit-of-bones/">a 2013 study</a> found that their mitochondrial DNA is more similar to that of Denisovans (see video, below), who also <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229630-500-denisovans-the-lost-humans-who-shared-our-world/">lived later and thousands of kilometres away, in southern Siberia</a><b>.</b><br />
So who were the Sima people – and how are they related to us?<br />
<div class="mpu" id="video-mid-article">
</div>
To find out, a team led by <a href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/advanced-dna-sequencing-techniques/overview.html">Matthias Meyer</a>
at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany, pieced together parts of the hominin’s nuclear DNA from samples
taken from a tooth and a thigh bone.<br />
<br />
<figure class="article-img-inline img-800 case5"><img alt="4_Homo-heidelbergensis_-Sima-de-los-Huesos_Credit-Javier-Trueba-Madrid-Scientific-Films" class="wp-image-2080570 size-full-size" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/4_homo-heidelbergensis_-sima-de-los-huesos_credit-javier-trueba-madrid-scientific-films-1200x800.jpg" width="400" /><div class="image-details">
<br />
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">One of the Sima de los Huesos skeletons</figcaption><br />
<div class="credit">
Javier Trueba, Madrid Scientific Films</div>
</div>
</figure>
The results suggest they are more closely related to ancestors of
Neanderthals than those of Denisovans – meaning the two groups must have
diverged by 430,000 years ago. This is much earlier than the
geneticists had expected.<br />
It also alters our own timeline. We know that Denisovans and
Neanderthals shared a common ancestor that had split from our modern
human lineage. In light of the new nuclear DNA evidence, Meyer’s team
suggests this split might have happened as early as 765,000 years ago.<br />
Previous DNA studies had dated this split to just 315,000 to 540,000 years ago, says <a href="http://www.geo.uni-tuebingen.de/?id=1513">Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou</a> at the University of Tubingen in Germany.<br />
But a date of 765,000 years ago actually <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/45/18196.abstract">brings the DNA evidence more in line</a>
with some recent fossil interpretations that also suggest an older
divergence between modern humans and the ancestor of the Neanderthals
and Denisovans.<br />
“I am very happy to see that ideas about the divergence based on
ancient DNA and on anatomical studies of the fossil record seem to be
converging,” says <a href="https://anthropology.columbian.gwu.edu/aida-gomez-robles">Aida Gómez-Robles</a> at George Washington University in Washington DC, who was involved in the fossil research.<br />
<h2>
Tree redrawn?</h2>
But if such an ancient split is correct, we might have to redraw parts of our evolutionary tree.<br />
Conventional thinking is that modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/710">all evolved</a> from an ancient hominin called <i>Homo</i> <i>heidelbergensis</i>.<br />
However, <i>H.</i> <i>heidelbergensis</i> didn’t evolve until
700,000 years ago – potentially 65,000 years after the split between
modern humans and the Neanderthals and Denisovans.<br />
Instead, another, obscure species called <i><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13537-first-european-had-a-mountain-retreat-in-spain/">Homo antecessor</a></i> might now be in the frame as our common ancestor.<br />
This species first appeared more than a million years ago – and its face is very similar to that of modern humans, says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Stringer">Chris Stringer</a> at the Natural History Museum in London.<br />
<h2>
Further puzzles</h2>
“Research must now refocus on fossils from 400,000 to 800,000 years
ago to determine which ones might actually lie on the respective
ancestral lineages of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans,” he
says.<br />
Another puzzle remains. The study confirmed a previous finding that
the mitochondrial DNA of the Sima hominin is more similar to Denisovans
than to Neanderthals – but no one knows why.<br />
Perhaps there was another unidentified lineage of hominins in Eurasia
that interbred with the ancestors of both – but not with the particular
group of hominins that evolved into the Neanderthals.<br />
Or, Meyer says, perhaps such mitochondrial DNA was typical of early
Neanderthals and Denisovans, and it was only later that Neanderthals
acquired different mitochondrial DNA from an African population of
“proto-<i>Homo</i> <i>sapiens</i>“.<br />
Journal reference: <i>Nature</i>, DOI: 10.1038/nature17405<br />
<b>Find out more about the</b> <b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029462-600-oldest-human-genome-dug-up-in-spains-pit-of-bones/">oldest human genome dug up in Spain’s pit of bones</a>:</b><br />
<br />
<b> </b><img class="logo udc_l" src="http://www.upi.com/img/upi_logo_ndc.png" /><br />
<h1 class="st_headline title" itemprop="headline">
Neanderthal diet: Only 20 percent vegetarian</h1>
<div class="st_desc grey">
Researchers have long debated the precise
diet of early humans, but the latest study is the first to nail down
precise percentages.</div>
By <a href="http://www.upi.com/author/Brooks-Hays/">Brooks Hays</a>
| March 14, 2016 at 12:33 PM <br />
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<img src="http://cdnph.upi.com/sv/b/i/UPI-4471457967149/2016/1/14579715654487/Neanderthal-diet-Only-20-percent-vegetarian.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></div>
</div>
Fossil analysis suggests Neanderthals ate a diet of <br />
80 percent meat. Photo by OrdinaryJoe/Shutterstock <br />
<div class="caption" style="padding: 10px 10px 0 10px;">
</div>
<br />
<article itemprop="articleBody"><div id="article">
<span class="story_dl">TUBINGEN, Germany, March 14 (UPI) --</span>
Neanderthals were apparently too busy hunting and scavenging to pay much
attention to Michael Pollan's dietary advice: eat mostly plants.<br />
New isotopic analysis suggests prehistoric humans ate mostly meat. As detailed in a new study <a class="tpstyle" href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618215011829" target="_blank">published in the journal Quaternary International</a>, the Neanderthal diet consisted of 80 percent meat, 20 percent vegetables.<br />
Researchers in Germany measured isotope concentrations of collagen in
Neanderthal fossils and compared them to the isotopic signatures of
animal bones found nearby. In doing so, scientists were able to compare
and contrast the diets of early humans and their mammalian neighbors,
including mammoths, horses, <a class="tpstyle" href="http://www.upi.com/topic/reindeer/" title="reindeer">reindeer</a>, bison, hyenas, bears, lions and others.<br />
"Previously, it was assumed that the Neanderthals utilized the same
food sources as their animal neighbors," lead researcher Herve
Bocherens, a professor at the University of Tubingen's Senckenberg
Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, <a class="tpstyle" href="http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=5210&kid=2&id=3960" target="_blank">said in a news release</a>.<br />
"However, our results show that all predators occupy a very specific
niche, preferring smaller prey as a rule, such as reindeer, wild horses
or steppe bison, while the Neanderthals primarily specialized on the
large plant-eaters such as mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses," Bocherens
explained.<br />
All of the Neanderthal and animal bones, dated between 45,000 and
40,000 years old, were collected from two excavation sites in Belgium.<br />
Researchers have long debated the precise diet of early humans, but
the latest study is the first to nail down precise percentages.<br />
Bocherens and his colleagues are hopeful their research will shed light on the Neanderthals' extinction some 40,000 years ago.<br />
"We are accumulating more and more evidence that diet was not a
decisive factor in why the Neanderthals had to make room for modern
humans," he said.<br />
<h1 class="headline" id="headline" itemprop="headline">
Humans Interbred With Hominins on Multiple Occasions, Study Finds</h1>
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<a class="byline-column-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/column/matter">MATTER</a>
<time class="dateline" datetime="2016-03-17">MARCH 17, 2016</time>
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<div class="sharetools theme-classic sharetools-story-meta-footer " data-author="By CARL ZIMMER" data-description="The interbreeding may have given modern humans better immunity to pathogens, according to the authors of the analysis of global genomes." data-media="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/18/science/22ZIMMER/22ZIMMER-jumbo.jpg" data-publish-date="March 17, 2016" data-shares="facebook,twitter,email,show-all,save" data-title="Humans Interbred With Hominins on Multiple Occasions, Study Finds" data-url="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/neanderthals-interbred-with-humans-denisovans.html" id="sharetools-story-meta-footer" role="group">
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<img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Skulls of the Neanderthal man." data-mediaviewer-credit="European Pressphoto Agency" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/18/science/22ZIMMER/22ZIMMER-superJumbo.jpg" height="209" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/18/science/22ZIMMER/22ZIMMER-master1050.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/18/science/22ZIMMER/22ZIMMER-master1050.jpg" width="400" /><div class="media-action-overlay">
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<span class="caption-text">Skulls of the Neanderthal man.</span>
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<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="255" data-total-count="255">
The
ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and another
extinct line of humans known as the Denisovans at least four times in
the course of prehistory, according to an analysis of global genomes
published on Thursday in the journal Science.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="113" data-total-count="368">
The interbreeding may have given modern humans genes that bolstered immunity to pathogens, the authors concluded.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="237" data-total-count="605">
“This
is yet another genetic nail in the coffin of our over-simplistic models
of human evolution,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, a research scientist at
the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona who was not involved
in the study.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="273" data-total-count="878">
The
new study expands on a series of findings in recent years showing that
the ancestors of modern humans once shared the planet with a surprising
number of near relatives — lineages like the Neanderthals and Denisovans
that became extinct tens of thousands of years ago.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="140" data-total-count="1018">
Before
disappearing, however, they interbred with our forebears on at least
several occasions, and today we carry DNA from these encounters.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="202" data-total-count="1220">
The
first clues to ancient interbreeding surfaced in 2010, when scientists
discovered that some modern humans — mostly Europeans — carry DNA that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html">matches material recovered from Neanderthal fossils</a>.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="145" data-total-count="1365">
Later studies showed that the forebears of modern humans <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/science/toe-fossil-provides-complete-neanderthal-genome.html">first encountered Neanderthals</a> after expanding out of Africa more than 50,000 years ago.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="191" data-total-count="1556">
But
the Neanderthals were not the only extinct humans that our own
ancestors found. A finger bone discovered in a Siberian cave, called
Denisova, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/science/23ancestor.html">yielded DNA from yet another group of humans.</a></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="249" data-total-count="1805">
Research
later indicated that all three groups — modern humans, Neanderthals and
Denisovans — shared a common ancestor who lived roughly 600,000 years
ago. And, perhaps no surprise, some ancestors of modern humans also
interbred with Denisovans.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="130" data-total-count="1935">
Some
of their DNA has survived in people in Melanesia, a region of the
Pacific that includes New Guinea and the islands around it.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="230" data-total-count="2165">
Those
initial discoveries left major questions unanswered, such as how often
our ancestors interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Scientists
have developed new ways to study the DNA of living people to tackle
these mysteries.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="294" data-total-count="2459">
Joshua
M. Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington, and his
colleagues analyzed a database of 1,488 genomes from people around the
world. The scientists added 35 genomes from people in New Britain and
other Melanesian islands in an effort to learn more about Denisovans in
particular.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="168" data-total-count="2627">
The
researchers found that all the non-Africans in their study had
Neanderthal DNA, while the Africans had very little or none. That
finding supported previous studies.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="187" data-total-count="2814">
But
when Dr. Akey and his colleagues compared DNA from modern Europeans,
East Asians and Melanesians, they found that each population carried its
own distinctive mix of Neanderthal genes.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="151" data-total-count="2965">
The best explanation for these patterns, the scientists concluded, was that the ancestors of modern humans <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aad9416">acquired Neanderthal DNA on three </a><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aad9416">occasions</a>.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="102" data-total-count="3067">
The first encounter happened when the common ancestor of all non-Africans interbred with Neanderthals.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="219" data-total-count="3286">
The
second occurred among the ancestors of East Asians and Europeans, after
the ancestors of Melanesians split off. Later, the ancestors of East
Asians — but not Europeans — interbred a third time with Neanderthals.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="161" data-total-count="3447">
Earlier
studies had hinted at the possibility that the forebears of modern
humans had multiple encounters with Neanderthals, but until now hard
data was lacking.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="221" data-total-count="3668">
“A
lot of people have been arguing for that, but now they’re really
providing the evidence for it,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a geneticist at the
University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the new
study.</div>
</div>
</article>Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-2031834764018124372016-03-12T19:44:00.000-08:002016-03-12T19:44:11.281-08:00Scientists create chickens with dinosaur legs, because why not
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<span>By </span><span class="fn">Lulu Chang</span>
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Oh how the mighty dinosaurs
have fallen. It’s a bit sad that the descendants of the magnificent
creatures who once ruled the Earth have stubby wings and are the most
commonly consumed meat in America (yes, I’m talking about the chicken).
Such is the circle of life. And now, in an attempt to restore a bit of
the glory of dinosaurs (or just create a truly bizarre looking animal),
scientists have genetically modified chickens to give them dinosaur
legs. Because science.<br />
Interestingly enough, because of the close genetic relationship the
modern day chicken shares with the prehistoric giant, the researchers
involved with the wacky task simply had to silence a gene that chickens
typically express. No gene insertion or further manipulation — just a
(highly complex) flip of a switch.<br />
The precise gene suppressed by the Chilean scientists, headed by Joâo Botelho<br />
At Universidad de Chile is one called the Indian Hedgehog. This gene
is crucial to the development of chicken’s bones, and when turned off,
apparently allows the birds to develop a bone structure that looks just
like the lower leg of a raptor. Chicken on top, dinosaur on the bottom.<br />
<strong>Related</strong>: <a data-rapid_p="9" href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/just-for-the-tech-of-it-martian-crops-dinosaur-chicken/" rel="nofollow">Just For the Tech of It: Martian crops and dinosaur chickens</a><br />
This is by no means the first time that Botelho or other scientists
have engineered a bird to go back to its more magnificent origins.
Botelho also managed to undo the backward-facing perching toe common in
birds to produce a front-facing toe — much like what dinosaurs had. And
at Yale, a chicken was given a dinosaur-esque snout when its gene
expression was altered at the embryo stage.<br />
This sort of work is taking place across the country, and indeed, across the world, says <a data-rapid_p="10" href="http://www.postregister.com/articles/featured-news-daily-email/2016/03/11/students-marvel-%25E2%2580%2598chickenosaurus%25E2%2580%2599" rel="nofollow">Jack Horner</a>, a famous paleontologist whose expertise was consulted in each and every one of the <em>Jurassic Park </em>films.
At his lab at Montana State University, scientists are working to “
genetically alter a chicken egg to produce a more prehistoric version of
the animal, complete with velociraptor-shaped head, arms, clawed hands
and long tail,” the Post Register reports. But don’t worry, researchers
say that we won’t be plunged into a real life version of the movies
anytime soon.<br />
“The experiments are focused on single traits, to test specific
hypotheses,” says Alexander Vargas, who heds the lab in which Botelho
works. “Not only do we know a great deal about bird development, but
also about the dinosaur-bird transition, which is well-documented by the
fossil record. This leads naturally to hypotheses on the evolution of
development, that can be explored in the lab.”<br />
Just call it scientific curiosity, and enjoy the strange but wonderful results that have come out of it … thus far.<br />
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Oh how the mighty dinosaurs have fallen. It’s
a bit sad that the descendants of the magnificent creatures who once
ruled the Earth have stubby wings and are the most commonly consumed
meat in America (yes, I’m talking about the chicken). Such is the circle
of life. And now, in an attempt to restore a bit of the glory of
dinosaurs (or just create a truly bizarre looking animal), scientists
have genetically modified chickens to give them dinosaur legs. Because
science.<br />
Interestingly enough, because of the close genetic
relationship the modern day chicken shares with the prehistoric giant,
the researchers involved with the wacky task simply had to silence a
gene that chickens typically express. No gene insertion or further
manipulation — just a (highly complex) flip of a switch.<br />
The precise gene suppressed by the Chilean scientists, headed by Joâo Botelho<br />
At Universidad
de Chile is one called the Indian Hedgehog. This gene is crucial to the
development of chicken’s bones, and when turned off, apparently allows
the birds to develop a bone structure that looks just like the lower leg
of a raptor. Chicken on top, dinosaur on the bottom.<br />
<strong>Related</strong>: <a data-rapid_p="11" href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/just-for-the-tech-of-it-martian-crops-dinosaur-chicken/">Just For the Tech of It: Martian crops and dinosaur chickens</a><br />
This
is by no means the first time that Botelho or other scientists
have engineered a bird to go back to its more magnificent origins.
Botelho also managed to undo the backward-facing perching toe common in
birds to produce a front-facing toe — much like what dinosaurs had. And
at Yale, a chicken was given a dinosaur-esque snout when its gene
expression was altered at the embryo stage.<br />
This sort of work is taking place across the country, and indeed, across the world, says <a data-rapid_p="12" href="http://www.postregister.com/articles/featured-news-daily-email/2016/03/11/students-marvel-%25E2%2580%2598chickenosaurus%25E2%2580%2599" target="_blank">Jack Horner</a>, a famous paleontologist whose expertise was consulted in each and every one of the <em>Jurassic Park </em>films.
At his lab at Montana State University, scientists are working to “
genetically alter a chicken egg to produce a more prehistoric version of
the animal, complete with velociraptor-shaped head, arms, clawed hands
and long tail,” the Post Register reports. But don’t worry, researchers
say that we won’t be plunged into a real life version of the movies
anytime soon.<br />
“The experiments are focused on single traits, to
test specific hypotheses,” says Alexander Vargas, who heds the lab in
which Botelho works. “Not only do we know a great deal about bird
development, but also about the dinosaur-bird transition, which is
well-documented by the fossil record. This leads naturally to hypotheses
on the evolution of development, that can be explored in the lab.”<br />
<div id="yui_3_18_1_1_1457827960503_875">
Just call it scientific curiosity, and enjoy the strange but wonderful results that have come out of it … thus far.</div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-59399817921063736792016-03-07T19:53:00.001-08:002016-03-07T19:53:14.391-08:00Dinosaur-era geckos and chameleons perfectly preserved in amber<h2>
https://www.newscientist.com/</h2>
<figure class="article-img-inline img-800 case5"><img alt="Lizards in amber" class="size-full-size wp-image-2079611" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/main-daza1hr_1-1200x800.jpg" width="400" /><div class="image-details">
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Gloriously well preserved</figcaption><div class="credit">
Florida Museum of Natural History/Kristen Grace</div>
</div>
</figure>
They probably hid from feathered dinosaurs, only to end up stuck in redwood sap.<br />
A new collection of 12 lizards <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2077484-beautiful-amber-fossil-flower-reveals-plant-history-of-new-world/">preserved in amber</a> dates back to middle of the Cretaceous period – when dinosaurs such as the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001-400-how-the-largest-dinosaurs-got-so-big/">massive <em>Argentinosaurus</em></a> were still around – and may include the ancestors of geckos and chameleons.<br />
The specimens come from Myanmar’s Kachin state and are thought to
have lived in tropical forest. Each is embedded in Burmese amber, which
previous studies dated to about 100 million years old. Previously, we
knew of only a few fragments of amber lizards <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27439-predatory-cockroach-from-dinosaur-era-found-trapped-in-amber/">from the time of the dinosaurs</a> – when modern lizard groups first evolved, according to genetic analyses.<br />
The lizards, discovered in private amber collections on loan to the
American Museum of Natural History and Harvard University, are
immaculate and unusually diverse. As such they suggest that major lizard
groups were already established at that time. The specimens will now <a href="http://www.hmns.org/exhibits/special-exhibitions/amber-secrets-feathers-from-the-age-of-dinosaurs/">go on display</a> at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.<br />
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“One of them is perhaps the best fossil gecko that is known in the world,” says <a href="http://www.shsu.edu/academics/biological-sciences/people/faculty.html">Juan Daza</a>
of Sam Houston State University in Texas, whose team revealed the
finds, and then used CT scans to study them (click on image below). It
was so detailed the team initially thought it looked like a modern
animal.<br />
<figure class="article-img-inline case1"><a href="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fossils.gif" rel="lightbox"><img alt="Lizard scans" class="article-img-inline" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fossils-800x533.gif" title="" width="400" /></a><div class="image-details">
<div class="credit">
Florida Museum of Natural History/Kristen Grace</div>
</div>
</figure>
But it wasn’t recent. “We started looking at the characteristics we
describe in modern species, and none of those match,” Daza says. The <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25874-electrifying-feet-help-geckos-keep-their-grip/">adhesive toe pads</a> are already present in these ancient specimens, suggesting the gecko’s climbing lifestyle evolved much earlier than thought.<br />
Another specimen has its tongue stuck out. With a narrow, extended tip, it matches no snake or lizard tongue ever found.<br />
One small lizard is <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26646-first-carnivorous-plant-fossil-is-40-million-years-old/">trapped</a>
next to a scorpion-like animal and a millipede. That proximity, plus
the fact that modern lizards in tropical forests hunt arthropods,
suggest these animals preyed on them, Daza says.<br />
That particular lizard is doubly interesting. Its bone structure
resembles that of a newborn chameleon, although it is about four times
the age of the oldest chameleon-like fossils previously known.<br />
It even has a weak jaw, which wouldn’t be good for biting prey – possible evidence that the modern chameleon’s method of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18624-why-chameleons-are-the-only-lizards-that-eat-breakfast/">grabbing prey with a projectile tongue</a> is really an old adaptation, Daza says. The find may also challenge current view that chameleons originated in Africa.<br />
The new specimens are beautiful and very exciting, says <a href="https://uofa.ualberta.ca/biological-sciences/faculty-and-staff/academic-staff/michael-caldwell">Michael Caldwell</a>
of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “We really have had
little to no previous fossil record detailing that part of the family
tree of lizards,” he says.<br />
But closer anatomical studies are now needed to determine where each
lizard is best classified – especially the putative chameleon, he adds.<br />
<br />
<strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530090-700-stunning-fossils-the-seven-most-amazing-ever-found/">Stunning fossils: The seven most amazing ever found</a><br />
<div class="references">
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501080"><i>Science Advances</i>, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501080</a></div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-19834549327479910602016-02-29T18:46:00.001-08:002016-02-29T18:46:22.090-08:00Forgotten fossil reveals growth potential of carnivorous dinosaurs<div class="st_headline title" itemprop="headline">
"Our study shows how museums still play an
important role in preserving specimens of primary scientific value,"
said study co-author Andrea Cau.
By <a href="http://www.upi.com/author/Brooks-Hays/">Brooks Hays</a>
| Feb. 29, 2016 at 10:32 AM</div>
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<img height="266" src="http://cdnph.upi.com/sv/b/i/UPI-3081456755996/2016/1/14567590307387/Forgotten-fossil-reveals-growth-potential-of-carnivorous-dinosaurs.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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A rendering offers an idea of how large abelisaurs were. Photo by ICL
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<article itemprop="articleBody"><div id="article">
<span class="story_dl">LONDON, Feb. 29 (UPI) --</span> After
re-examining a fossilized femur bone belonging to an abelisaur specimen,
researchers can say with more certainty how large these fearsome
predators could become.<br />
Based on their analysis, researchers at Imperial College London
believe the femur belonged to an abelisaur weighing nearly two metric
tons and stretching nine meters, or almost 30 feet. Those dimensions
make it one of the largest abelisaurs ever found.<br />
The new research was detailed <a class="tpstyle" href="https://peerj.com/articles/1754/" target="_blank">in the journal PeerJ</a>.<br />
"Smaller abelisaur fossils have been previously found by
paleontologists, but this find shows how truly huge these flesh eating
predators had become," researcher Alessandro Chiarenza, study co-auhtor,
<a class="tpstyle" href="http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_29-2-2016-9-34-57" target="_blank">said in a press release</a>.
"Their appearance may have looked a bit odd as they were probably
covered in feathers with tiny, useless forelimbs, but make no mistake
they were fearsome killers in their time."<br />
Abelisauridae dinosaurs made up for their tiny forelimbs and odd
appearance with massive hindquarters and deadly sharp teeth. They
thrived in what is now northern Africa some 95 million years ago, though
abelisaur fossils have been dated as far back as 170 million years ago
and as recently as 66 million years ago.<br />
The femur was originally found in a Moroccan deposit known as Kem Kem
Beds -- famous for its abundance of predatory dino bones. The site has
confounded researchers who believe it would have been impossible for so
many carnivorous dinosaurs to coexist in such tight quarters.<br />
New analysis suggests the sometimes violent geologic conditions that
created Kem Kem Beds may have also mixed up the strata and chronology of
the fossil record.<br />
Other sites suggest abelisaur were inland hunters, somewhat separated
from their closest cousins, who preferred to hunt fish near lakes and
rivers.<br />
"This fossil find, along with the accumulated wealth of previous
studies, is helping to solve the question of whether abelisaurs may have
co-existed with a range of other predators in the same region,"
Chiarenza explained. "Rather than sharing the same environment, which
the jumbled up fossil records may be leading us to believe, we think
these creatures probably lived far away from one another in different
types of environments."<br />
The fossil was not recently unearthed, but had been sitting in a
museum drawer for several decades -- further proof that closeted
collections hide nearly as many secrets as untouched earth.<br />
"While palaeontologists usually venture to remote and inaccessible
locations, like the deserts of Mongolia or the Badlands of Montana,"
added Andrea Cau, study co-author and researcher at the University of
Bologna, "our study shows how museums still play an important role in
preserving specimens of primary scientific value, in which sometimes the
most unexpected surprises can be discovered."<br />
</div>
</article>Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-54268758347607635822016-02-21T21:44:00.000-08:002016-02-21T21:49:36.757-08:00Turmeric: Is This 'Miracle Food' the Real Deal? Here's What the Research Says <h1>
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http://www.stack.com/
<time class="pull-left" datetime="2016-02-19 16:03"></time></h2>
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<time class="pull-left" datetime="2016-02-19 16:03">February 19, 2016</time><br />
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<a class="video-title-hyperlink" href="http://www.stack.com/video/4764858445001/the-benefits-of-turmeric">The Benefits of Turmeric</a></div>
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Unless you've been living under a rock for the past three months,
you've probably heard about turmeric. If not, here's a quick rundown:
Turmeric is a plant in the ginger family that's native to southwest
India. Its root can be boiled, ground and baked to produce an
orangish-yellowish powder. This powder, often referred to as ground
turmeric or turmeric powder, has been a staple of Indian and Pakistani
cuisine for thousands of years. Now, many Americans are also embracing
it. So, why are we suddenly obsessed with this ancient spice?<br />
<div class="ym" id="ym_1349133566957223467">
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<br />
Because it's being labeled across the internet as an incredibly
powerful "superfood." Google "turmeric health benefits" and you'll find
thousands of articles claiming turmeric can do everything under the sun.
If you believe everything you read, turmeric can supposedly:<br />
<ul>
<li>whiten teeth</li>
<li>reduce wrinkles</li>
<li>relieve pain</li>
<li>thicken hair</li>
<li>treat and prevent multiple forms of cancer</li>
<li>prevent Alzheimer's</li>
<li>increase weight loss</li>
<li>treat depression</li>
<li>improve sleep</li>
<li>pretty much anything else you could ever want</li>
</ul>
Pretty crazy, right? Well, don't go out and buy drums of turmeric
quite yet. It's not uncommon for the benefits of trendy foods to get
exaggerated, only to fade from the limelight when people realize those
benefits are mostly hot air. That's why STACK dove into the research to
see if turmeric really deserves to be the next big thing in nutrition.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>The Secret Ingredient</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Turmeric Powder" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236490 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19111125/Turmeric-Powder-STACK.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric Powder - STACK" width="400" /></div>
<br />
Before we address the research, let's check out the basic nutritional
profile of ground turmeric. One tablespoon contains 24 calories, .7
grams of fat, 1.4 grams of fiber and .5 grams of protein. In terms of
the major vitamins and minerals, it contains a solid amount of iron but
not much else. So the basic nutritional facts are pretty pedestrian. If
that's the case, why is turmeric getting so much hype?<br />
The answers lies in curcumin, a powerful antioxidant found almost
exclusively in turmeric. Much of the research into turmeric's health
benefits focus on its curcumin content. When it comes to the purported
benefits of turmeric, curcumin is key.<br />
How much curcumin is in ground turmeric?<br />
According to a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17044766" target="_blank">2006 study</a> published in the journal<i> Nutrition and Cancer</i>,
pure turmeric powder averages 3.14% curcumin by weight. So if you eat
100 grams of pure turmeric powder, you will consume about 3.14 grams of
curcumin. A tablespoon of turmeric powder measures 17 grams, containing
roughly .57 grams (or 570 mg) of curcumin. That's a solid amount, but
downing tablespoons of ground turmeric powder can be unpleasant—which is
why many people take turmeric in the form of a capsule supplement.<br />
Now that we know about the importance of curcumin, let's check out the research.<br />
<br />
<b style="font-size: 1.5em;">Can Turmeric Help Reduce Inflammation?</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Ground Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236502 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19114226/Ground-Turmeric-STACK.jpg" height="225" title="Ground Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /></div>
<br />
<br />
Inflammation is the body's natural response to injury, infection or
disease. Its purpose is to protect the body and let it heal. But chronic
inflammation can become a health risk. Many common conditions—such as
asthma and arthritis—are classified as "inflammatory," and inflammation
can contribute to more life-threatening diseases like cancer and
cardiovascular disease. So if turmeric could help reduce inflammation,
that would be an awesome benefit. But is it true?<br />
<b><i>RELATED:</i><a href="http://www.stack.com/a/turmeric" target="_blank"> Three Powerful Health Benefits of Turmeric</a></b><br />
The research says yes. <a href="https://examine.com/supplements/curcumin/" target="_blank">Examine</a>,
an independent site that collates scientific research and disseminates
information on supplementation and nutrition, points to five separate
studies regarding curcumin's effects on inflammation before concluding
that "there appears to be a decrease in disease states or conditions
characterized by inflammation associated with curcumin ingestion" and
that curcumin "does not appear to be too discriminatory in which
inflammatory states it benefits."<br />
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The average age of the subjects varied widely among the studies, and
curcumin was found to reduce inflammation related to a wide variety of
conditions, including osteoarthritis, diabetic nephropathy and lichen
planus (a skin disease).<br />
<h2>
<b>Can Turmeric Change Body Composition?</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236554 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154055/Turmeric-STACK.jpg" height="222" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
Millions of Americans are overweight. And millions of Americans
desire to change their bodies for the better. So the promise that
turmeric can potentially aid in fat loss is certainly appealing. But
does the research back it up?<br />
Not quite. There currently isn't enough data to support the idea that
turmeric has a significant effect on body composition. A 2009 animal
study found that dietary curcumin could potentially inhibit the spread
of fat tissue, but not enough high-quality research is yet available to
reach a conclusion on this topic.<br />
<h2>
<b>Can Turmeric Be Used as a Pain Reliever?</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236555 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154111/Turmeric-STACK1.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
One of turmeric's most interesting reported benefits is pain relief.
Instead of popping a Tylenol, you could just down some turmeric. It's
intriguing, sure. But is it true?<br />
It looks likely. There haven't been a ton of studies on turmeric's
role as a pain reliever, but what's available is encouraging. Examine
writes, "there appear to be decreases in pain associated with curcumin
at higher doses (400-500 mg) which extend to post-operative, arthritic
and general pain symptoms. This does seem comparable to 2g of
acetaminophen in potency."<br />
Acetaminophen is the major active ingredient in Tylenol and many generic pain relievers, so that's a pretty impressive result.<br />
<h2>
<b>Can Turmeric Help Battle or Even Prevent Forms of Cancer?</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236556 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154149/Turmeric-STACK2.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Perhaps the most intriguing purported benefit of turmeric is its
ability to battle cancer. It sounds too good to be true, but a growing
amount of research suggests that curcumin can help fight this
all-too-common disease.<br />
According to the <a href="http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/turmeric" target="_blank">University of Maryland Medical Center</a>,
"there has been a great deal of research on turmeric's anti-cancer
properties, but results are still very preliminary. Evidence from test
tube and animal studies suggests that curcumin may help prevent or treat
several types of cancers, including prostate, breast, skin, and colon
cancer. Tumeric's preventive effects may relate to its antioxidant
properties, which protect cells from damage. More research is needed."<br />
Yes, more research is needed, but early results are encouraging regarding curcumin's role in battling cancer.<br />
<h2>
<b>Can Turmeric Help Prevent Heart Disease?</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Turmeric" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236557 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154224/Turmeric-STACK3.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
According to the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm" target="_blank">CDC</a>,
one in every four deaths in the United States can be attributed to
heart disease. Could turmeric help curb this massive public health
issue?<br />
<b><i>RELATED:</i> <a href="http://www.stack.com/a/heart-healthy-foods" target="_blank">Heart-Healthy Foods for Athletes</a></b><br />
It's too early to tell. Some animal studies have found that curcumin
could help improve your cholesterol profile and thus reduce your risk of
blocked arteries (which lead to heart attacks and stroke), but the same
results have not yet been achieved in human studies. Turmeric could
potentially help prevent heart disease, or it could have no discernible
effect—we'll just have to wait for more research.<br />
<br />
<b style="font-size: 1.5em;">Can Turmeric Help Treat Depression?</b><br />
<br />
<img alt="Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236558 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154308/Turmeric-STACK4.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
According to the <a href="http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics" target="_blank">Anxiety Disorders Association of America</a>,
depression affects nearly 15 million Americans in any given year. Could
turmeric help boost the mood of those suffering with depression?<br />
Research has been sparse but encouraging. One study found that taking
500 mg of curcumin twice a day (roughly equivalent to two tablespoons
of pure powdered turmeric) helped depressed subjects reduce their
symptoms as well as Fluoxetine, a popular anti-depressant medication
frequently marketed under the name "Prozac." However, no placebo group
was used for comparison in the study.<br />
<h2>
<b>Can Turmeric Make Me More Attractive?</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Ground Turmeric" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236559 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154344/Ground-Turmeric-STACK1.jpg" height="225" title="Ground Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Turmeric's supposed benefits also include beautification: whiter
teeth, clearer skin and thicker hair. They all sound great, but the only
one supported by research is clearer skin.<br />
<b><i>RELATED:</i><a href="http://www.stack.com/a/just-a-spoonful-a-day-of-these-5-foods-can-boost-your-health/slide-4" target="_blank"> Just a Spoonful a Day of These 5 Foods Can Boost Your Health</a></b><br />
Several studies have found that ground turmeric helps protect the
skin from UV rays, reduce the appearance of dark spots, reduce acne,
prevent wrinkles and help heal wounds. So the idea that turmeric can
help improve the health and appearance of your skin certainly sounds
valid.<br />
However, claims like whiter teeth and thicker hair aren't backed by
the same amount of research. It's possible that turmeric (more
specifically, curcumin) could help confer those benefits, but the
research is extremely limited at this point in time.<br />
<h2>
<b>The Verdict</b></h2>
<h2>
<b> </b></h2>
<img alt="Turmeric " class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-236560 img-responsive" src="http://upl.stack.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19154429/Turmeric-STACK5.jpg" height="225" title="Turmeric - STACK" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
It's not unusual for the benefits of hip, trendy foods to get totally
overblown. However, in the case of turmeric, a solid amount of research
backs up many of its purported health benefits. More research is needed
before concrete conclusions are reached, but even in areas where the
research has been sparse—such as pain relief—early results have been
encouraging. You shouldn't toss out the contents of your medicine
cabinet in favor of turmeric, but it really does seem likely to have
impressive capabilities.<br />
There has<a href="http://time.com/3984504/turmeric-supplements-curcumin/" target="_blank"> yet to be a consensus</a> on the best way to ingest turmeric and/or curcumin. The human body has been found capable of consuming<a href="https://examine.com/supplements/curcumin/" target="_blank"> 8 grams of curcumin a day without adverse affects</a>,
so overdosing shouldn't be a major concern. Whether you take it as a
supplement or use it to spice up your food, you should strive to combine
turmeric with a source of fat and/or black pepper. These greatly
increase the absorption rate of curcumin, and many turmeric or curcumin
supplements contain them.<br />
<br />
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<br />Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-67959757628334022602016-02-17T21:00:00.001-08:002021-06-20T15:44:10.122-07:00Humans and Neanderthals had sex a lot earlier than scientists thought <h1 class="instapaper_title" data-remote-admin-entry-id="10785055" data-remote-headline-edit="title" data-remote-headline-promo-headine="Humans and Neanderthals had sex a lot earlier than scientists thought" id="stream_title">
</h1>
<h2 data-remote-admin-entry-id="10785055" data-remote-headline-edit="summary">
http://www.theverge.com/<br />
<br />
Some humans may have left Africa over 100,000 years ago</h2>
<ul class="p-entry-header__byline">
<li class="author">
<span itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
By <a class="author fn" href="http://www.theverge.com/users/Arielle%20Duhaime-Ross">Arielle Duhaime-Ross</a>
</span>
</li>
<li class="published">
on <time class="updated" datetime="2016-02-17 13:00:04-0500" pubdate="">February 17, 2016 01:00 pm</time>
</li>
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<a href="mailto:arielle@theverge.com" title="">Email</a>
</li>
</ul>
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An analysis of the genome of a Siberian Neanderthal, <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature16544">published today in </a><i><a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature16544">Nature</a></i>,
reveals for the first time that humans contributed DNA to the
Neanderthal genome about 100,000 years ago; that's 50,000 years earlier<b> </b>than the previous estimate. The finding points to an earlier departure from Africa for our human ancestors.<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Between 1 and 7 percent of the Siberian Neanderthal’s genome was <i>human</i> </span>—
inherited from people who migrated out of Africa. That suggests humans
and Neanderthals interbred several times. But it also alters our
understanding of human history. Since Neanderthals didn’t make it to
Africa, humans must have left about 50,000 years earlier than
evolutionary biologists had previously estimated. And that's big news,
says Sergi Castellano,<b> </b>an evolutionary biologist at the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and a
co-author of the study. This is "the<b> </b>first piece of genetic evidence" that some modern humans "were already out of Africa" 100,000 years ago, he says.</div>
<q class="right">Humans left their mark on Neanderthals, too</q><br />
Previous genetic analyses have revealed that humans <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/8/5593856/study-confirms-neanderthals-humans-interbreeding" style="background-color: white;">interbred</a> with Neanderthals less <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26435-thoroughly-modern-humans-interbred-with-neanderthals/" style="background-color: white;">than 65,000 years ago</a>, outside of Africa. As a result, Europeans and Asians inherited between <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/04/did-europeans-get-fat-neandertals" style="background-color: white;">1 and 4 percent </a>of
their DNA from Neanderthals. And that DNA still has an effect on humans
today; just last week scientists linked Neanderthal DNA to <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/11/10966912/neanderthal-dna-influence-skin-nicotine" style="background-color: white;">a wide range of human health conditions</a>, including depression and nicotine addiction.<br />
But until now, what researchers knew about Neanderthal-human
interactions came from studying the flow of genes from Neanderthals to
humans — and not the other way around. That's mostly because researchers
didn't have the kinds of technologies or the appropriate Neanderthal
DNA samples that would allow them to search in the opposite direction.
This is the first time that scientists have been able to find evidence
that humans left their genetic mark on Neanderthals as well, says
Laurent Frantz, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford
who didn't work on the study.<br />
<q class="center"><span>A Siberian Neanderthal with human DNA</span></q><br />
To arrive at these conclusions, Castellano and his team searched the
complete genome of a Neanderthal discovered in a Siberian Cave <a href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/neandertal/index.html" style="background-color: white;">in 2010</a>.
They found that certain regions of the Neanderthal's genome was closely
related to those found in African human populations today. To estimate
the timing of the interbreeding event, the researchers performed a
statistical analyses based on the size and the clustering of the DNA
fragments. This technique works because researchers know that when
animals reproduce, their genetic material mixes with that of other
animals; this causes individual DNA fragments belonging to one
individual to break into smaller pieces as they're passed down through
generations. In this particular case, the technique revealed that the
Siberian Neanderthal's ancestors interbred with humans some 100,000
years ago.<br />
<i><small>Neanderthal toe bone (Bence Viola)</small></i><br />
The researchers verified their findings by looking at the genome of a
Denisovan — a member of an extinct human species that split off from
Neanderthals some 380,000 years ago, after Neanderthals became a
subspecies distinct from modern humans. Because Denisovans are more
closely related to Neanderthals than they are to humans, their genomes
can help scientists figure out the kinds of genetic mutations that are
typical of these human subspecies. The analysis showed no evidence of
the human DNA fragments in the Denisovan's genome, which suggests that
these genetic elements were introduced in the Siberian Neanderthal's
genome after Denisovans and Neanderthals evolved away from each other.<br />
Castellano and his team also compared genetic material on chromosome
21 for the Siberia Neanderthal and two different populations of European
Neanderthals. The scientists found no evidence of human integration in
the European samples, which means that ancestors of the introduction of
human DNA into the Siberia Neanderthal probably happened after the
Siberian population branched off from the European Neanderthals, around
110,00 years ago.<br />
<q class="right">"This is a big milestone."</q><br />
The study "doesn't change what we knew before; it's building on it,"
Frantz says. Instead, it gives scientists a better understanding of how
many times human and Neanderthals met. "This is a big milestone," he
says.<br />
Sarah Tishkoff, an evolutionary biologist at University of
Pennsylvania who didn't work on this study, agrees. "This is really
exciting work because it changes what we thought about human
evolutionary history."<b> </b>But<b> </b>she also says that the the
comparison of chromosome 21 means that researchers could be missing
signs of human DNA integration in the rest of the European genomes. In
addition, the study doesn't actually reveal much about the interbreeding
event itself. Even though the Neanderthal in the study was found in
Siberia, the human-neanderthal interactions probably occurred further
south, Tishkoff says. But where exactly those interactions happened is a
mystery. The fate of these adventurous humans is also unclear, Frantz
says. "The population is probably partly extinct, and partly integrated
in many different populations across the world."<br />
The study raises a ton of questions, but for now the findings suggest
that what we thought we knew about humans and Neanderthals is just one
tiny piece of the puzzle. "There could have been multiple [human]
migrations coming out of Africa, and some groups just didn't make it,"
Tishkoff says. Research like this helps "paint a picture of what the
ancestry was, not just of modern humans, but of Neanderthals; and that
picture was more complex than we thought."Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-11526552354371210032016-02-05T02:21:00.001-08:002021-06-20T15:14:59.443-07:00Mystery invaders conquered Europe at the end of last ice age<h1 class="article-title">
https://www.newscientist.com</h1>
<figure class="article-img-inline img-800 case5"><img alt="DNA was taken from ancient human bones, like this skull, from the Dolnte Vestonice burial site in the Czech Republic" class="size-full-size wp-image-2076486" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lead_107772-1200x800.jpg" width="400" /><div class="image-details">
<br />
<br />
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">DNA was taken from ancient human bones, like this skull, </figcaption><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">from the Dolnte Vestonice burial site in the Czech Republic</figcaption><br />
<div class="credit">
L. Lang</div>
</div>
</figure>
Europe went through a major population upheaval about 14,500 years
ago, at the end of the last ice age, according to DNA from the bones of
hunter-gatherers.<br />
<b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24940-ancient-european-hunter-gatherer-was-a-blue-eyed-boy">Ancient DNA studies</a> </b>published
in the last five years have transformed what we know about the early
peopling of Europe. The picture they paint is one in which successive
waves of immigration wash over the continent, bringing in new people,
new genes and new technologies.<br />
These studies helped confirm that Europe’s early hunter-gatherers –
who arrived about 40,000 years ago – were largely replaced by farmers
arriving from the Middle East about 8000 years ago. These farmers then
saw an influx of pastoralists from the Eurasian steppe about 4500 years
ago, meaning <b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730282-900-the-three-ancestral-tribes-that-founded-western-civilisation/">modern Europe was shaped by three major population turnover events</a>.</b><br />
<h2>
Waves of immigration</h2>
The latest study suggests things were even more complicated. About 14,500 years ago, when Europe was <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628891-900-the-great-thaw-charting-the-end-of-the-ice-age/">emerging from the last ice age</a>,
the hunter-gatherers who had endured the chilly conditions were largely
replaced by a different population of hunter-gatherers.<br />
<div class="mpu" id="video-mid-article">
</div>
Exactly where this new population came from is still unclear, but it
seems likely that they came from warmer areas further south. “The main
hypothesis would be glacial refugia in south-eastern Europe,” says <b><a href="http://www.shh.mpg.de/2890/johanneskrause">Johannes Krause</a> </b>at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena">Jena</a>, Germany, who led the analysis.<br />
As conditions improved, it was these southern hunter-gatherers who
took advantage and migrated into central and northern Europe, he says –
meaning there was a genetic discontinuity with the hunter-gatherer
populations that had lived there earlier.<br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="article-img-inline case3"><img alt="2nd_107773" class="article-img-inline" height="266" src="https://d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2nd_107773-1200x800.jpg" title="" width="400" /><div class="image-details">
<div class="credit">
Martin Frouz</div>
</div>
</figure>
His team analysed mitochondrial DNA extracted from 55 ancient
Europeans, the oldest of whom lived 35,000 years ago – during the
Pleistocene – and the youngest just 7000 years ago, during the Holocene.
Previous studies focused largely on the Holocene, looking at human
remains from the last 10,000 years.<br />
“This is the first glimpse at Pleistocene population dynamics in
Europe,” says Krause. “Little has been done on this older material,
mostly due to lower abundance of material and lesser preservation due to
age.”<br />
“The population turnover after 14,500 years ago was completely unexpected,” says <b><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eQmvmqQAAAAJ&hl=en">Iosif Lazaridis</a> </b>at
the Harvard Medical School in Boston. “It seems that the
hunter-gatherers of Europe braved the worst of the ice age during the
last glacial maximum but were then replaced when the ice age had begun
to subside.”<br />
<h2>
Europe’s unusual history</h2>
The picture is not yet clear, however, as the study only looked at
mitochondrial DNA sequences, rather than the longer nuclear DNA of other
studies. “Mitochondrial DNA tells only part of the story of a
population,” says Lazaridis. It is important to try to extract nuclear
sequences from the Pleistocene-aged skeletons to find out more about
this earlier population turnover, he says.<br />
The work also may solve a long-standing mystery of why a certain
genetic signature is missing in people of European ancestry. All people
today are members of one of a relatively small number of distinct groups
based on their mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down the maternal
line. The distribution of people in each group gives us a sense of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7371-out-of-africa-and-straight-to-the-beach/">how humans spread across the world</a> in prehistory.<br />
It always seemed that Europe had a very unusual history of
colonisation because one major haplogroup – the M clade – is almost
entirely missing, despite being <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2156-5-26">very common across Asia</a> and even found in Native Americans. Instead, another major haplogroup – the N clade – is most common.<br />
“Some authors had argued that the M and N haplogroups represented two different dispersal events from Africa,” says <a href="http://mega.bioanth.cam.ac.uk/">Toomas Kivisild</a> at the University of Cambridge.<br />
But Krause and his colleagues found that the M clade might actually
have been common in Europe before the population turnover 14,500 years
ago: three of the 18 most ancient humans they studied belonged to the M
clade.<br />
This suggests that the initial colonisation of Europe and Asia may
have involved the same ancient population – and that the M group was
actually lost in Europe much later, perhaps connected in some way to the
mystery upheavals 14,500 years ago.<br />
Journal reference: <i>Current Biology</i>, DOI: <a href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2816%2900087-7">10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037</a><br />
<b>Read more:</b> <b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730282-900-the-three-ancestral-tribes-that-founded-western-civilisation/">The three ancestral tribes that founded Western civilisation</a></b><br />
<br />
<b> http://arstechnica.com/</b><br />
<h1 class="subheading thick-divide-bottom" id="archive-head">
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/"> <span class="archive-name">Scientific Method</span>
<span class="divider"> / </span>
<span class="archive-desc">Science & Exploration</span>
</a></h1>
<br />
<header>
<h1 class="heading" itemprop="headline">
There was a massive population crash in Europe over 14,500 years ago</h1>
<h2 class="standalone-deck" itemprop="description">
New evidence shows a whole group of Europeans vanished, replaced by people of unknown origins.</h2>
<div class="post-meta">
<div class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
by <a href="http://arstechnica.com/author/annalee/" itemprop="url" rel="author"><span itemprop="name">Annalee Newitz</span></a>
- <span class="date" data-time="1454632510" title="Thu Feb 04 2016 18:35:10 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)">Feb 4, 2016 6:35pm CST</span>
</div>
<div class="corner-info">
<a class="comment-count" href="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/there-was-a-massive-population-crash-in-europe-over-14500-years-ago/?comments=1" title="63 posters participating, including story author."><br /></a>
</div>
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</header>
<br />
<div class="article-content clearfix" itemprop="articleBody">
Europe wasn't a very hospitable place fifteen millennia ago. The
westernmost landmass of the Eurasian continent had endured a long ice
age, with glaciers stretching across northern Europe and into the region
we now call Germany. But suddenly, about 14,500 years ago, things
started to warm up quickly. The glaciers melted so fast around the globe
that <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/299/5613/1709">they caused sea levels to rise 52 feet in just 500 years</a>.
Meanwhile, the environment was in chaos, with wildlife trying vainly to
adjust to the rapid fluctuations in temperature. Humans weren't immune
to the changes, either.<br />
A new, comprehensive analysis of ancient European DNA published today in <i>Current Biology</i> magazine
by an international group of researchers reveals that this period also
witnessed a dramatic shift in the human populations of Europe.
Bloodlines of hunter-gatherers that had flourished for thousands of
years disappeared, replaced with a new group of hunter-gatherers of
unknown origin.<br />
Researchers discovered this catastrophic population meltdown by
sequencing the mitochondrial DNA of 35 people who lived throughout
Europe between 35 and 7 thousand years ago. Mitochondrial DNA is a tiny
amount of genetic material that's inherited virtually unchanged via the
maternal line, and thus it serves as a good proxy for relatedness over
time. Two people from the same maternal stock share almost the same
mitochondrial DNA, even if separated by thousands of years, because this
kind of DNA evolves very slowly.<br />
It's long been known that two such related groups, called M clade and
N clade, poured out of Africa and across the Eurasian continent about
55 thousand years ago. Some of these people wandered so far that they
even made it to Australia, eventually. And yet something rather odd
happened to the people of Europe. Only members of the N clade survived
into the present day, while Asia, Australia, and the Americas are full
of the offspring of both N and M. Until the new study in <i>Current Biology</i>,
scientists believed that the most likely explanation was that roughly
45 thousand years ago, Europe was colonized solely by the N clade, while
both clades settled elsewhere around the world.<br />
But thanks to sequencing the mitochondrial DNA in those 35 ancient
people, the researchers uncovered something previously unknown. There
were, in fact, people from the M clade alive in Europe as recently as 25
thousand years ago. But something happened to wipe them out during the
cold, dry glacial maximum that gripped the world between 25 and 14.5
thousand years ago.<br />
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<br />
<figure class="image center large full-width" style="width: 640px;"><a class="enlarge" data-height="908" data-width="1324" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Screenshot-2416-111-PM.jpeg"><img height="274" src="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Screenshot-2416-111-PM-640x439.jpeg" width="400" /></a><figcaption class="caption"><div class="caption-text">
<a class="enlarge" data-height="908" data-width="1324" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Screenshot-2416-111-PM.jpeg">Enlarge</a> <span class="sep">/</span>
In this image, you can see the clades of the people</div>
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who the team
sequenced, and how they fared over time. The</div>
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R and U clades are all
descended from the N clade. Note that</div>
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M is present until 25 thousand
years ago, when the ice age begins. </div>
<div class="caption-credit">
Current Biology</div>
</figcaption></figure></div>
There are obvious reasons why Europeans might have suffered a
population bottleneck during the ice age, or the Last Glacial Maximum.
Food was scarce, and once-fecund habitats became unlivable. Groups that
once roamed the wide-open fields of Europe retreated into small refuges,
separated by walls of ice or frozen drought wastelends created when
glaciation locks up atmospheric water. The researchers believe that the M
clade, whose members were found far to the north, may have slowly died
out during that period. After the glaciers retreated, the survivors
were replaced by a new N-related population from elsewhere on the
continent.<br />
Write the researchers:<br />
<blockquote>
The potential impact of climatic events on the
demography, and thus the genetic diversity of early Europeans, has
previously been difficult to quantify, but it likely had consequences
for the relative components of ancient ancestry in modern-day
populations. Our demographic modeling reveals a dynamic history of
hunter-gatherers, including a previously unknown major population shift
during the Late Glacial interstadial (the BøllingAllerød, 14.5 ka).
Under our best-fitting model, the small initial founder population of
Europe slowly grows up until 25 ka and survives with smaller size in LGM
[Last Glacial Maximum] climatic refugia (25–19.5 ka) before
re-expanding as the ice sheets retract. Although this model supports
population continuity from pre- to post-LGM, the genetic bottleneck is
consistent with the apparent loss of hg M in the post-LGM. Globally, the
early warming phases of the Late Glacial are strongly associated with
substantial demographic changes, including extinctions of several
megafaunal species and the first expansion of modern humans into the
Americas. In European hunter-gatherers, our model best explains this
period of upheaval as a replacement of the post-LGM maternal population
by one from another source.</blockquote>
Essentially, an entire genetic line in Europe was wiped out by
climate change. You might say that today's European population still
bears the scars of an ancient ice age in its mitochondrial DNA.<br />
<i>Current Biology</i>, 2016. DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037">10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037.</a><br />
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<h1 class="headline" id="yui_3_18_1_1_1457408499931_1421">
Why Did Ancient Europeans Just Disappear 14,500 Years Ago?</h1>
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<span>By </span><span class="fn">Tia Ghose</span>
<abbr>March 2, 2016 11:22 AM</abbr>
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Some of Europe's earliest inhabitants mysteriously vanished
toward the end of the last ice age and were largely replaced by others, a
new genetic analysis finds.<br />
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The finds come from an analysis of dozens of ancient fossil remains collected across Europe.<br />
The genetic turnover was likely the result of a rapidly changing
climate, which the earlier inhabitants of Europe couldn't adapt to
quickly enough, said the study's co-author, Cosimo Posth, an
archaeogenetics doctoral candidate at the University of Tübingen in
Germany.<br />
[<a data-rapid_p="9" href="http://www.livescience.com/12937-10-mysteries-humans-evolution.html">Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans</a>]<br />
The temperature change around that time was "enormous compared to the
climactic changes that are happening in our century," Posth told Live
Science. "You have to imagine that also the environment changed pretty
drastically."<br />
<b>A twisted family tree</b><br />
Europe has a long and tangled genetic legacy. Genetic studies have revealed that the first modern humans who poured <a data-rapid_p="10" href="http://www.livescience.com/51005-humans-migrated-out-of-egypt.html">out of Africa</a>, somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, soon got busy <a data-rapid_p="11" href="http://www.livescience.com/48399-when-neanderthals-humans-first-interbred.html">mating with local Neanderthals</a>. At the beginning of the agricultural revolution, between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, <a data-rapid_p="12" href="http://www.livescience.com/40332-genetics-of-european-farmers.html">farmers from the Middle East</a>
swept across Europe, gradually replacing the native hunter-gatherers.
Around 5,000 years ago, nomadic horsemen called the Yamnaya emerged from
the steppes of Ukraine and intermingled with the native population. In
addition, another lost group of <a data-rapid_p="13" href="http://www.livescience.com/28954-ancient-europeans-mysteriously-vanished.html">ancient Europeans mysteriously vanished about 4,500 years ago</a>, a 2013 study in the journal Nature Communications found.<br />
But relatively little was known about human occupation of Europe between the first out-of-Africa event and the end of the last <a data-rapid_p="14" href="http://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html">ice age</a>,
around 11,000 years ago. During some of that time, the vast Weichselian
Ice Sheet covered much of northern Europe, while glaciers in the
Pyrenees and the Alps blocked east-west passage across the continent.<br />
<b>Lost lineages</b><br />
To get a better picture of Europe's genetic legacy during this cold
snap, Posth and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA — genetic
material passed on from mother to daughter — from the remains of 55
different human fossils between 35,000 and 7,000 years old, coming from
across the continent, from Spain to Russia. Based on mutations, or
changes in this mitochondrial DNA, geneticists have identified large
genetic populations, or super-haplogroups, that share distant common
ancestors.<br />
"Basically all modern humans outside of Africa, from
Europe to the tip of South America, they belong to these two
super-haplogroups that are M or N," Posth said. Nowadays, everyone of
European descent has the N mitochondrial haplotype, while the M subtype
is common throughout Asia and Australasia.<br />
The team found that in
ancient people, the M haplogroup predominated until about 14,500 years
ago, when it mysteriously and suddenly vanished. The M haplotype carried
by the ancient Europeans, which no longer exists in Europe today,
shared a common ancestor with modern-day M-haplotype carriers around
50,000 years ago.<br />
The genetic analysis also revealed that
Europeans, Asians and Australasians may descend from a group of humans
who emerged from Africa and rapidly dispersed throughout the continent
no earlier than 55,000 years ago, the researchers reported Feb. 4 in the
<a data-rapid_p="15" href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2816%2900087-7">journal Current Biology</a>.<br />
<b>Time of upheaval</b><br />
The team suspects this upheaval may have been caused by wild climate swings.<br />
At the peak of the ice age, around 19,000 to 22,000 years ago, people
hunkered down in climactic "refugia," or ice-free regions of Europe,
such as modern-day Spain, the Balkans and southern Italy, Posth said.
While holdouts survived in a few places farther north, their populations
shrank dramatically.<br />
Then around 14,500 years ago, the
temperature spiked significantly, the tundra gave way to forest and many
iconic beasts, such as <a data-rapid_p="16" href="http://www.livescience.com/48625-mummy-woolly-mammoth-brain-revealed.html">woolly mammoths</a> and saber-toothed tigers, disappeared from Eurasia, he said.<br />
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For whatever reason, the already small populations belonging to the M
haplogroup were not able to survive these changes in their habitat, and a
new population, carrying the N subtype, replaced the M-group ice-age
holdout, the researchers speculate.</div>
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Exactly where these replacements came from is still a mystery. But one
possibility is that the newer generation of Europeans hailed from
southern European refugia that were connected to the rest of Europe once
the ice receded, Posth speculated. Emigrants from southern Europe would
also have been better adapted to the warming conditions in central
Europe, he added.</div>
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Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-13191474589585662122016-02-05T02:02:00.001-08:002016-02-05T02:03:39.837-08:0040 million years before butterflies existed, this creature evolved with strikingly similar looks<div class="moat-trackable pb-f-theme-normal pb-3 pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-article-article-topper" data-chain-name="no-name" data-feature-id="article/article-topper" data-feature-name="no-name" id="ftBwYi2ivgLcBp">
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science">Speaking of Science</a></div>
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<div class="pb-sig-line hasnt-headshot has-0-headshots hasnt-bio is-not-column">
<span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rachel-feltman"><span itemprop="name">Rachel Feltman</span></a></span> <span class="pb-timestamp" content="2016-02-04T10:39-500" itemprop="datePublished">February 4 at 10:39 AM</span></div>
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<span class="pb-timestamp" content="2016-02-04T10:39-500" itemprop="datePublished"> </span> <span class="pb-tool email"><a href="mailto:rachel.feltman@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20%2740%20million%20years%20before%20butterflies%20existed,%20this%20creature%20evolved%20with%20strikingly%20similar%20looks%27"><span class="fa fa-envelope"></span></a></span> <span class="tweet-authors"><span class="pb-twitter-follow"></span> </span> </div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="dde65bbb21"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2016/02/RSPB-2015-2893-cover-graphic-1-11-2016-e1454598199212-1024x551.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2016/02/RSPB-2015-2893-cover-graphic-1-11-2016-e1454598199212-1024x551.jpg&w=480" height="215" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2016/02/RSPB-2015-2893-cover-graphic-1-11-2016-e1454598199212-1024x551.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br />
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<span class="pb-caption">A
photo of the modern owl butterfly (Caligo Memnon) below a fossilized
Kalligrammatid lacewing (Oregramma illecebrosa) shows some remarkable
similarities. (James Di Loreto/Smithsonian)</span> </div>
Before
butterflies, there were Kalligrammatid lacewings — winged insects that
took butterfly-like form at least 40 million years before the modern
bugs first came on the scene. But the remarkably butterflyesque species <i>Oregramma illecebrosa</i>, described in a <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1824/20152893">study published Wednesday</a> in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, isn't a <a href="http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Taxonomy%204.htm">butterfly ancestor</a>:
Other members of its lineage went on to become entirely different sorts
of insects. Instead, this striking similarity is a case of convergent
evolution — the same shapes, patterns and perhaps even behaviors came
about twice, totally independently.<br />
The findings come thanks to
some especially well-preserved fossils found in northeastern China,
which allowed researchers to study the ancient insects more closely than
ever before.<br />
"They've been known for about 100 years, but in the
1960s there were some specimens that made people say, gosh, these
really look like butterflies,"<a href="http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/smithsonian-scientists-discover-butterfly-fossil-insect-deep-mesozoic"> Smithsonian paleoecologist Conrad Labandeira</a>,
lead author on the study, told The Washington Post. "But we knew they
were unrelated. That's where it stood for some 55 years."<br />
<div class="interstitial-link">
<i> [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/17/debunking-the-myth-that-evolution-cant-explain-eyeballs/">Debunking the myth that evolution can’t explain eyeballs</a>] </i> </div>
But once Labandeira and his team — an <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/iu-iup020316.php">international collaboration of scientists</a> —
got a hold of the Chinese fossils, things got much more interesting.
The resemblance is so strong that even experts were fooled at a
distance: Labandeira recalls a colleague from the entomology department
assuming the fossil on the table was a butterfly from 20 feet away.<br />
"When I told him to come closer, and he looked again, his jaw dropped," Labandeira said.<br />
One of the more remarkable similarities is superficial in nature: The spots seen on the <i>Oregramma illecebrosa </i>fossils are nearly identical to patterns found on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_butterfly">owl butterflies today</a>.
These so-called eye spots mimic the peepers of a large bird, scaring
off predators that might otherwise make a quick snack of a delicate
butterfly.<br />
It's thought that <i>Oregramma illecebrosa </i>last
shared a common ancestor with modern butterflies more than 320 million
years ago. The fact that two quite unrelated insects developed these
markings millions of years apart from one another is a perfect example
of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution">convergent evolution</a>: <i>Oregramma illecebrosa </i>might
not have shared space with owls, but plenty of big-eyed creatures
— perhaps even dinosaurs, the prominent predators of the Jurassic period
— could have served as inspiration for the markings. An <i>Oregramma illecebrosa </i>would
have had a better chance of surviving dino dinnertime if it could pass
itself off as a bigger animal, and over time — as faux-eyed insects
continued to breed more successfully than those without the markings
— the patterns would become more complex.<br />
Then, millions of years
later, an unrelated group of insects did the exact same thing. What
worked well in the Jurassic still works well today.<br />
But there are
signs that these ancient bugs shared behavioral traits with modern
butterflies, too: They had modified hairs on their legs for collecting
pollen, just as modern butterflies do. And they even had long
proboscises, which modern butterflies use to suck nectar from flowers
— even though flowering plants didn't exist at the time. Instead, <i>Oregramma illecebrosa </i>and its ilk would have gathered dry and liquid pollen from primitive, non-flowering plants.<br />
This
is another case of convergent evolution, Labandeira explained. Other
studies have found that multiple groups of insects had these long
mouth-parts before flowers existed, so they must have evolved
specifically to suck the liquids of plants that have long gone extinct.
Then, when flowers became ecologically dominant, the whole system was
reinvented.<br />
"It’s kind of like a baseball team," Labandeira said.
"The positions are the same, but the players are changed. It was a
different world that these insects were evolving in. So they’re serving
very similar roles, but they’re completely different."Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-3864396153073211952016-02-02T21:09:00.004-08:002016-02-02T21:09:51.075-08:00Yes, this prehistoric fish actually had a buzzsaw of spiraling teeth<h1 class="subheading thick-divide-bottom" id="archive-head">
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/"> <span class="archive-name">Scientific Method</span>
<span class="divider"> / </span>
<span class="archive-desc">Science & Exploration</span>
</a></h1>
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It takes an artist to capture the true weirdness of the ancient animal's face.</h2>
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<div class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
by <a href="http://arstechnica.com/author/annalee/" itemprop="url" rel="author"><span itemprop="name">Annalee Newitz</span></a>
- <span class="date" data-time="1454425188" title="Tue Feb 02 2016 08:59:48 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)">Feb 2, 2016 8:59am CST</span>
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<figure class="intro-image image center full-width" style="width: 640px;">
<img height="300" src="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/staab_sculpture.jpg__800x600_q85_crop-640x480.jpg" width="400" />
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LOOK INTO MY TEETH AND DESPAIR.</div>
<div class="caption-credit">
<a class="caption-link" href="http://www.trollart.com/" rel="nofollow">Ray Troll</a></div>
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Nicknamed the "buzzsaw shark," this 270 million-year-old creature is actually an extinct relative of the ratfish called a <em>Helicoprion. </em>Its bizarre tooth arrangement has confused scientists for over a century, but one artist finally got it right.<br />
Ray Troll, whose art show about <em>Hilicoprion</em> has been touring
the US for the past three years, has been on the front lines of
scientific research about one of the strangest fossils ever found. When
geologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Karpinsky" target="_blank" title="Wikipedia Karpinsky">Alexander Petrovich Karpinsky</a> discovered
the creature's tooth whorl in 1899, at first he thought it was a kind
of ammonite because the teeth looked so much like the ammonite's spiral
shell.<br />
<a href="http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/26/buzzsaw-jaw-helicoprion-was-a-freaky-ratfish/">Paleo expert Brian Switek writes that it took Karpinsky a little while</a>
to realize that it was actually part of a larger animal. Over the next
century, many different paleontologists offered explanations for what it
might be, including a defensive formation on <em>Helicoprion</em>'s nose, a ridge on its back, or even sticking out of its mouth like a spiky, curled tongue.<br />
<div class="centered-figure-container">
<figure class="image center large full-width" style="width: 640px;"><a class="enlarge" data-height="2003" data-width="2700" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Misbegotten-Helicos_color.jpg"><img height="296" src="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Misbegotten-Helicos_color-640x475.jpg" width="400" /></a><figcaption class="caption"><div class="caption-text">
<a class="enlarge" data-height="2003" data-width="2700" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Misbegotten-Helicos_color.jpg">Enlarge</a> <span class="sep">/</span> All the different ways that scientists have tried to </div>
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explain where Helicoprion's spiral teeth were positioned.</div>
<div class="caption-credit">
<a class="caption-link" href="http://www.trollart.com/" rel="nofollow">Ray Troll</a></div>
</figcaption></figure></div>
Over <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/prehistoric-buzz-shark-has-modern-day-hero-artist-ray-troll-180957923/#iKF7YM8dWxZByRXD.99">at the Smithsonian</a>,
there's a great profile of Troll, who has done<br />
a lot more than make art
of this crazy fish. He's actually added to the<br />
scholarship on it:<br />
<blockquote>
Troll’s passion, however, has served a purpose far beyond
the aesthetic charm of a framed picture—it has shaped the scientific
community’s knowledge of <em>Helicoprion </em>itself. Back in the
mid-1990s, when he wrote and spoke with [paleontologist Svend Erik
Bendix] Almgreen, Troll discovered that the scientist had published his
hypothesis about the buzz shark’s physiology in an obscure paper in
1966. This knowledge remained hidden, lost to memory even to prominent
paleontologists, until 2010, when an undergraduate student working as an
intern at the Idaho Museum of Natural History got in touch with Troll.</blockquote>
As a result, Troll began working with paleontologist Leif Tapanila,
who used used CT scans to image a whole skull of a Helicoprion—revealing
that the buzzsaw shape was actually part of its lower jaw, used for
slicing food and pushing it toward the back of the fish's mouth. It
seems that the teeth formed in the jaw next to the topmost part of the
spiral, then gradually worked their way down and back into the jaw. Once
there, the teeth would be absorbed into cartilage and eventually turned
into teeth again. These scans became the basis for <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roybiolett/9/2/20130057.full.pdf">an article published in 2013 in <em>Biology Letters</em></a>, which also included some of Troll's artwork of the buzzsaw in its rightful place.<br />
<div class="centered-figure-container">
<figure class="image center large full-width" style="width: 640px;"><a class="enlarge" data-height="1280" data-width="1160" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/F2.large_.jpg"><img height="400" src="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/F2.large_-640x706.jpg" width="362" /></a><figcaption class="caption"><div class="caption-text">
<a class="enlarge" data-height="1280" data-width="1160" href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/F2.large_.jpg">Enlarge</a> <span class="sep">/</span> Here you can see the fossils that Tapanila put into the CT scanner, along with the structure they revealed. </div>
<div class="caption-credit">
Royal Society</div>
</figcaption></figure></div>
Troll's drawings and sculptures, which are still touring the US today (currently they are at the <a href="http://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/the_buzz_saw_sharks_of_long_ago_featuring_the_art_of_tay_troll#.VrD0QjYrKX0">University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History</a>),
are a reminder that paleoartists contribute a great deal to scientific
discovery. Taking a whimsical approach, Troll called his show "The Buzz
Sharks of Long Ago." His goofy humor is a perfect way to shine light on
the truth of natural history, which is often so weird that it might as
well be art.<br />
</div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-3487180034746851792016-02-01T21:27:00.001-08:002016-03-14T21:19:28.334-07:00Neanderthals were wiped out because modern humans were more ARTISTIC: Cultural lifestyle gave us an edge and helped us innovate<br />
<div class="weather" data-track-module="nav-weather^weather" data-track-pos="static" style="display: block;">
<b>Monday, Feb 1st 2016</b><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/weather/index.html"> <span class=""></span></a></div>
<ul class="mol-bullets-with-font">
<li class=""><span style="font-size: 1.4em;"><b>Researchers from Stanford University and Meiji University made the claim</b></span></li>
<li class=""><span style="font-size: 1.4em;"><b id="ext-gen143"> They
used models to show a small modern human population was capable of
displacing a larger Neanderthal one, due to cultural changes </b></span></li>
<li class=""><span style="font-size: 1.4em;"><b>Art
is an indicator of humans' ability to innovate, said the researchers,
and once people start innovating, technology changes rapidly</b></span></li>
<li class=""><span style="font-size: 1.4em;"><b>This advanced lifestyle gave us a competitive edge, leading to extinction</b></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="author-section byline-plain">
By
<a class="author" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Sarah+Griffiths+for+MailOnline" rel="nofollow">Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline</a>
</div>
<div class="byline-section">
<span class="article-timestamp article-timestamp-published">
<span class="article-timestamp-label">Published:</span>
15:00 EST, 1 February 2016
</span>
| <span class="article-timestamp article-timestamp-updated">
<span class="article-timestamp-label">Updated:</span>
19:11 EST, 1 February 2016
</span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">ns have been blamed for killing off the Neanderthals around 30,000
years ago by breeding with them and even murdering them. </span><br />
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">But now experts believe it was our ancestors' artistic and innovative abilities that ultimately led to the Neanderthal's demise.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
experts believe our more advanced lifestyle gave us a cultural and
competitive edge over our ancient cousins and this paved the way for
their extinction.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<br /></div>
<div class="artSplitter mol-img-group">
<div class="mol-img">
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<img alt="Experts believe Neanderthals (model pictured right) were wiped out by artistic and innovative modern humans. The study claims our more advanced lifestyle gave us a cultural and competitive edge over our ancient cousins which ultimately paved the way for their extinction" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/15/30C9125000000578-3426706-Experts_believe_that_Neanderthals_model_pictured_right_were_wipe-a-161_1454342005094.jpg" data-track-pos="0" height="223" id="i-5613d94fb58b5962" width="400" /><br />
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<div class="imageCaption">
Experts believe Neanderthals (model
pictured right) were wiped out by artistic and innovative modern
humans. The study claims our more advanced lifestyle gave us a cultural
and competitive edge over our ancient cousins which ultimately paved the
way for their extinction</div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Researchers
from Stanford University in California and Meiji University in Japan
used computer models to show a small modern human population was capable
of displacing a larger Neanderthal one, if they had a sufficiently
large cultural advantage - such as artistic capability.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
Neanderthals faced a vicious circle because as modern humans' cultural
advantages increased, their competitive advantage also increased, which
in turn further boosted their cultural advantage.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
results, published in the journal Proceeding of the National Academy of
Sciences, add to a growing body of evidence, that modern humans
destroyed the Neanderthals.</span></div>
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS sciencetech">
<h3 class="wocc">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">HOW ART GAVE OUR ANCESTORS THE EDGE OVER NEANDERTHALS </span>
</h3>
<div class="ins cleared xolcc bdrcc">
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Research
has shown cultural life became increasingly important for humans with
childhoods becoming longer than those of Neanderthals, for instance.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Neanderthal
children's teeth grew more quickly than modern human children, meaning
they must have had a much reduced opportunity to learn from their
parents and clan members.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Experts
believe our ancestors then moved from a primitive 'live fast and die
young' strategy to a 'live slow and grow old' one - making humans one of
the most successful organisms on Earth. </span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Elsewhere,
modern humans gained new cultural abilities that allowed them to better
exploit their environments and out-compete groups such as Neanderthals.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Archaeologists
have found cave paintings, rock art and beads dating from after 50,000
years ago, where before then there was limited evidence of art and
culture.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
study explains art is an indicator of humans' ability to innovate, and
once people start innovating, technology changes rapidly.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It was likely this process that allowed humans to successfully populate the planet.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Professor
Marcus Feldman, of Stanford University in California, said: 'Most
archaeologists argue the advantage to modern humans lay in a higher
culture level, but a sizable minority dispute this view.'</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">He
continued that competition between the two species may have occurred
when a modern human entered a region occupied by a larger Neanderthal
population.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Professor Feldman said: 'We present a model for this replacement.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Our
findings shed light on the disappearance of the Neanderthals, showing
that endogenous factors such as relative culture level, rather than such
extrinsic factors as epidemics or climate change, could have caused the
eventual exclusion of a comparatively larger population by an initially
smaller one.'</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Research
has shown cultural life became increasingly important for humans with
childhoods becoming longer than those of Neanderthals, for instance.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Neanderthal
children's teeth grew much more quickly than modern human children,
meaning they must have had a much reduced opportunity to learn from
their parents and clan members.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Professor
Feldman believes our ancestors moved from a primitive 'live fast and
die young' strategy to a 'live slow and grow old' one - making humans
one of the most successful organisms on the planet.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">This means Neanderthals, who lived in small populations across Europe, were ill-equipped to deal with the newcomers.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<br /></div>
<div class="artSplitter mol-img-group">
<div class="mol-img">
<div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer;">
<img alt="The researchers said: 'Our findings shed light on the disappearance of the Neanderthals, showing that endogenous factors such as relative culture level, rather than such extrinsic factors as epidemics...could have caused the eventual exclusion [of Neanderthals]' A Neanderthal skull is pictured above" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/15/30C9126000000578-3426706-Professor_Feldman_said_Our_findings_shed_light_on_the_disappeara-a-163_1454342202008.jpg" data-track-pos="1" height="320" id="i-613f068210944a24" width="400" /><br />
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<div class="imageCaption">
The researchers said: 'Our findings
shed light on the disappearance of the Neanderthals, showing that
endogenous factors such as relative culture level, rather than such
extrinsic factors as epidemics...could have caused the eventual
exclusion [of Neanderthals]' A Neanderthal skull is pictured above</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="artSplitter mol-img-group">
<div class="mol-img">
<div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer;">
<img alt="Modern humans gained new cultural abilities (a cave painting from Montignac, France is pictured) that allowed them to better exploit their environments and out-compete groups like Neanderthals. The study explained art is an indicator of humans' ability to innovate, and once people start innovating, technology changes rapidly" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/15/30C9127400000578-3426706-image-a-162_1454342198718.jpg" data-track-pos="2" height="266" id="i-9ff245f1513a9010" width="400" /><br />
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<div class="imageCaption">
Modern humans gained new cultural
abilities (a cave painting from Montignac, France is pictured) that
allowed them to better exploit their environments and out-compete groups
like Neanderthals. The study explained art is an indicator of humans'
ability to innovate, and once people start innovating, technology
changes rapidly</div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Elsewhere,
modern humans gained new cultural abilities that allowed them to better
exploit their environments and out-compete groups such as Neanderthals.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In
particular, archaeologists have found evidence that big changes
occurred in human society around the time the Neanderthals disappeared.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<br /></div>
<div class="mol-img-group floatRHS">
<div class="mol-img">
<div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer;">
<img alt="Researchers believe the artistic and inventive attributes (illustrated) of modern humans led to us out-competing Neanderthals" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/15/30C9126C00000578-3426706-image-a-158_1454341922885.jpg" data-track-pos="3" height="418" id="i-32945f215656c454" width="306" /><br />
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</div>
</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
Researchers believe the artistic and inventive attributes </div>
<div class="imageCaption">
(illustrated) of modern humans led to us out-competing Neanderthals</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">These include cave paintings, rock art and beads dating from after 50,000 years ago. </span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Before then there was limited evidence of art and culture.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
study explained art is an indicator of humans' ability to innovate, and
once people start innovating, technology changes very rapidly.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It was likely this process that allowed humans to successfully populate the planet.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">However,
the study will prove controversial because jewellery thought to have
been made by neanderthals up to 130,000 years ago has previously been
earthed.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Eight
talons taken from a white-tailed eagle found at Neanderthal site in
Krapina in Croatia were used to create a necklace or bracelet.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">And
last year, experts claimed weapons used by modern humans were no better
than the Neanderthals' handiwork, signifying our direct ancestors were
not technologically superior.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Dr
Seiji Kadowaki, first author of this earlier study from Nagoya
University, Japan, said: 'We're not so special, I don't think we
survived Neanderthals simply because of technological competence.'</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Early modern humans expanded the geographic area they inhabited out of Africa during a period of 55,000 to 40,000 years ago.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
researchers studied stone tools that were used by people in the Early
Ahmarian culture and the Protoaurignacian culture, living in south and
west Europe and west Asia around 40,000 years ago.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They used small stone points as tips for hunting weapons like throwing spears.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Researchers
previously considered these to be an important innovation - one that
helped the humans migrate from west Asia to Europe, where Neanderthals
were living.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<br /></div>
<div class="artSplitter mol-img-group">
<div class="mol-img">
<div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer;">
<img alt="Previously, researchers studied stone tools that were used by people in the Early Ahmarian culture and the Protoaurignacian culture, living in south and west Europe and west Asia around 40,000 years ago. They found the human tools (pictured) were no more effective than Neanderthal-created tools of the same era" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/20/30C92AA800000578-3426706-Previously_researchers_studied_stone_tools_that_were_used_by_peo-a-1_1454356817468.jpg" data-track-pos="4" height="335" id="i-9f3f0117cfb94ab2" width="400" /><br />
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</div>
</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
Previously, researchers studied stone
tools that were used by</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
people in the Early Ahmarian culture and the
Protoaurignacian </div>
<div class="imageCaption">
culture, living in south and west Europe and west Asia
around </div>
<div class="imageCaption">
40,000 years ago. They found the human tools (pictured) </div>
<div class="imageCaption">
were no
more effective than Neanderthal-created tools of the same era</div>
<div class="imageCaption">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">However, the research revealed a timeline that doesn't support this theory.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">If the innovation had led to the migration, evidence would show the stone points moving in the same direction as the humans.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">But
the study showed the possibility that the stone points appeared in
Europe 3,000 years earlier than in the Levant, a historical area in west
Asia.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'We
looked at the basic timeline revealed by similar stone points, and it
shows that humans were using them in Europe before they appeared in the
Levant - the opposite of what we'd expect if the innovation had led to
the humans' migration from Africa to Europe,' said Dr Kadowaki.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Our
new findings mean that the research community now needs to reconsider
the assumption that our ancestors moved to Europe and succeeded where
Neanderthals failed because of cultural and technological innovations
brought from Africa or west Asia.'</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They believe the timings imply several new scenarios about the migration of modern humans into Europe.</span></div>
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox sciencetech">
<h3 class="wocc">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">NEANDERTHALS WERE KILLED OFF BY MODERN DISEASES, EXPERTS CLAIM</span></h3>
<div class="ins cleared xolcc bdrcc">
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In
April last year, scientists claimed it may have been infectious
diseases carried by our modern human ancestors as they migrated out of
Africa that finished the Neanderthals off.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Experts
studying genetic, fossil and archaeological evidence said that
Neanderthals suffered from a wide range of diseases that still plague us
today.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They
have found evidence that suggests our prehistoric cousins would have
been infected by diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough,
encephalitis and the common cold.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">But
anthropologists from Cambridge University and Oxford Brookes University
said that new diseases carried by modern humans may have led to the
downfall of Neanderthals.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<br /></div>
<div class="artSplitter mol-img-group">
<div class="mol-img">
<div class="image-wrap fff-pic" style="cursor: pointer;">
<img alt="A previous study said Neanderthals may have succumbed to infectious diseases carried to Europe by modern humans as they migrated out of Africa. Bacteria that cause tuberculosis are shown above" class="blkBorder img-share" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/01/16/30C926B900000578-3426706-image-a-1_1454343189163.jpg" data-track-pos="5" height="273" id="i-648802280fb5f59b" width="400" /><br />
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<div class="imageCaption">
A previous study said Neanderthals may
have succumbed to infectious diseases carried to Europe by modern
humans as they migrated out of Africa. Bacteria that cause tuberculosis
are shown above</div>
</div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They
speculate that pathogens like Heliocbacter pylori, the bacteria that
causes stomach ulcers, were brought to Europe by modern humans from
Africa and may have infected Neanderthals, who would have been unable to
fight off these new diseases.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">However,
Neandethals may have also helped modern humans by passing on slivers of
immunity against some diseases to our ancestors when they interbred.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Dr
Simon Underdown, a principal lecturer in anthropology at Oxford Brookes
University and co-author of the study, said: 'As Neanderthal
populations became more isolated they developed very small gene pools
and this would have impacted their ability to fight off disease.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'When Homo sapiens came out of Africa they brought diseases with them.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'We
know that Neanderthals were actually much more advanced than they have
been given credit for and we even interbred with them.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font" id="ext-gen142">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Perhaps the only difference was that we were able to cope with these diseases but Neanderthals could not.'</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> http://arstechnica.com/</span></h2>
<h1 class="subheading thick-divide-bottom" id="archive-head">
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/"> <span class="archive-name">Scientific Method</span>
<span class="divider"> / </span>
<span class="archive-desc">Science & Exploration</span>
</a></h1>
<br />
<header>
<h1 class="heading" itemprop="headline">
Ancient hook-ups with Neanderthals left lasting effects on our health</h1>
<h2 class="standalone-deck" itemprop="description">
The genetic consequences of prehistoric loving are still doing a walk of shame.</h2>
<div class="post-meta">
<div class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
by <a href="http://arstechnica.com/author/beth/" itemprop="url" rel="author"><span itemprop="name">Beth Mole</span></a>
- <span class="date" data-time="1455217267" title="Thu Feb 11 2016 13:01:07 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)">Feb 11, 2016 1:01pm CST</span>
</div>
</div>
</header>
<br />
<div class="article-content clearfix" itemprop="articleBody">
<br />
<figure class="intro-image image center full-width" style="width: 640px;">
<img src="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/640px-Sapiens_neanderthal_comparison_en_blackbackground-640x417.png" height="260" width="400" />
<figcaption class="caption"><div class="caption-text">
Comparison of Modern Human and Neanderthal skulls from</div>
<div class="caption-text">
the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. </div>
<div class="caption-credit">
<a class="caption-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sapiens_neanderthal_comparison_en_blackbackground.png" rel="nofollow">hairymuseummatt</a></div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
WASHINGTON—Around 50,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans
shacked up with some Neanderthals—and the genetic consequences are still
doing a walk of shame through our generations.<br />
The questionable interbreeding left <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aad2149">traces of Neanderthal DNA</a>
that are linked to mood disorders, mostly depression, as well as
tobacco-use disorders, skin conditions, and hypercoagulation (excessive
blood clotting), according to a new study published Thursday in <i>Science</i>.
The findings lend support to the theory that our past hominin hook-up
has had a lasting influence on modern humans’ health. The data also
offers hints at genetic adaptations of our ancient ancestors and,
potentially, new insights into the diseases they help cause in modern
humans, the authors suggest.<br />
Having these traces of Neanderthal DNA doesn’t “doom us” to having
these diseases, cautioned John Capra, bioinformaticist at Vanderbilt
University and coauthor of the study. The genetic traces linked to
disease in modern humans doesn’t mean that Neanderthals were stricken
with those diseases either, he added. In fact, some of them could have
been advantageous.<br />
For instance, excessive blood clotting can result in strokes and
heart attacks in modern humans. However, quick clotting is also a
natural defense against bacteria entering a wound site, Capra explained.<br />
He hypothesizes that some of the Neanderthal traces that linger in
modern humans may have been advantageous at one point. This would make
sense, since the Neanderthals were likely highly adapted to their own
environments, he added. “Perhaps spending a night or two with a
Neanderthal is a relatively small price to pay for getting thousands of
years of adaptations,” Capra said.<br />
Researchers have hypothesized for some time that Neanderthal DNA—the
bits that have been maintained in modern humans’ genomes, that is—can
influence health. After all, Eurasian genomes contain about 1.5 to 4
percent Neanderthal DNA. But proving that the tiny fragments of ancient
DNA has influence has been tricky.<br />
For the study, Capra and colleagues harvested genetic and disease
incidence data from the electronic health records of more than 28,000
adults of European ancestry. Next, the researchers compared the genetic
data with that of Neanderthal genomes, looking for genetic fingerprints
of the ancient hominin’s DNA in modern genomes. Then they looked for
links between the presence of Neanderthal DNA and disease incidence in
the adults. Capra and colleagues found a number of links, some of which
seemed to be associated with sunlight exposure, they speculated. The
researchers found Neanderthal DNA variations associated with skin
conditions, including actinic keratosis, precancerous skin lesions
linked to over exposure to the sun. There were also Neanderthal links to
depression, a mood disorder that can in some cases be linked to sun
exposure in modern humans, the authors point out.<br />
Less clear, however, was the link to tobacco-use disorders, which was
found in the analysis. It’s unlikely that Neanderthals were taking
smoke breaks 50,000 years ago outside their caves, Capra said. But the
genetic hitch in modern humans in their modern environments may confer a
complex neurological trait that now creates a predisposition to
nicotine addiction. Studying the link further could offer new
information on understanding and even treating addiction in humans,
Capra explained.<br />
Moving forward, Capra expects that more research using big genetic
and disease datasets will reveal more ancient fragments of our genome
and their influence on health. After all, he said, human’s family tree
is a lot more bush-like than tree-like.<br />
<i>Science</i>, 2015. DOI: <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aad2149">10.1126/science.aad2149</a> (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/dois-and-their-discontents-1.ars">About DOIs</a>).</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-3658222708775116502016-01-27T20:27:00.004-08:002016-01-27T20:27:47.894-08:00A Bioengineered Tree Could Revive America's Once-Vast Chestnut Forests
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By Katharine Gammon | Takepart.com
<abbr>January 26, 2016 3:05 PM</abbr>
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A Bioengineered Tree Could Revive America's Once-Vast Chestnut Forests</div>
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A century ago, towering <a data-rapid_p="9" href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/14/forests-usa-massachusetts-carbon-storage-water-filtering-recreation">forests</a>
of chestnut trees blanketed the East Coast of the United States. Then a
fungus that hitched a ride on imported Asian chestnut trees began to
infect entire woodlands.<br />
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The result: Where 4 billion chestnut trees once stretched from Georgia to Maine, only about <a data-rapid_p="10" href="http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/7/1/4">400 million remain</a>
today. Now scientists aim to bring back the American chestnut by
bioengineering a tree to contain a gene that can withstand the
Cryphonectria parasitica fungus. If they succeed, new forests of
chestnuts could rise across the U.S. in the decades to come, absorbing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and providing food and shelter for
wildlife. <br />
“The fungus took out a quarter of all our eastern
forests,” said William Powell, codirector of the American Chestnut
Research and Restoration Project, who envisions restoring vast Eastern
chestnut forests by reclaiming mining lands and other barren areas.<br />
He
began working to bring back the chestnut 26 years ago. He and project
codirector Charles Maynard combed through more than 30 plant genes to
find one that would help stop the blight. They settled on a gene from a
cultivated wheat species that produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase.
(Powell points out that the gene has nothing to do with gluten, and the
chestnuts will stay gluten-free.) The gene is also found in
strawberries and bananas.<br />
<strong>RELATED:</strong> <a data-rapid_p="11" href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/09/03/more-trees-3-trillion-humans-cut-down-half">The Planet Has 3 Trillion Trees, but They Could Be Gone in 300 Years</a><br />
The
enzyme detoxifies the oxalate that the fungus uses to form deadly
cankers on chestnut stems. “The best thing about this gene is that it
does not harm the fungus at all,” said Powell. “The fungus can still
survive, but oxalate oxidase takes the weapon away from the fungus.”<br />
Having
the fungus survive is important for the safety of both species. Powell
explained that the scientists don’t want to put selective pressure on
the pathogen to overcome the resistance. “Since the fungus can still
grow on the bark of the tree, we’re changing the lifestyle of the
fungus,” he said.<br />
Powell, Maynard, and a group of researchers from the State University of New York have published <a data-rapid_p="12" href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016894521400079X">papers</a> on the blight-resistant nature of the transgenic tree and are awaiting approval from the federal government to plant the trees.<br />
The
restoration project hopes to grow 10,000 seedlings when it receives
government approval. In three to five years, those trees will be
available to the public to <a data-rapid_p="13" href="http://www.takepart.comto%20sell%20at%20cost%20to%20the%20public/">buy at cost</a> and plant.<br />
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Powell
cautioned that reviving chestnut forests will take time. “This is a
tree that can live a hundred years, not a weed that spreads quickly,” he
said. “It’s going to take some time to get them established.”</div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-68228672934512890452016-01-23T13:31:00.001-08:002016-01-25T21:33:34.571-08:00Paddle boarders close encounter with Orcas<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PrA0_CnVVqk" width="480"></iframe>Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-49521697999429669602016-01-21T09:52:00.000-08:002016-01-21T09:52:34.593-08:00Your Neanderthal DNA may help you fight disease, and give you allergies<div class="trb_ar_hl">
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http://www.latimes.com</h1>
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<figure class="trb_embed_imageContainer_figure" data-role="imgsize_item"><img alt="Map" class="trb_embed_imageContainer_img" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-568ee1f5/turbine/la-sci-sn-neanderthal-genes-immunity-20160106-001" data-content-naturalheight="578" data-content-naturalwidth="1016" data-height="350" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="600" height="225" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-568ee1f5/turbine/la-sci-sn-neanderthal-genes-immunity-20160106-001/600/600x338" title="Map" width="400" /></figure><div class="trb_embed_related" data-role="lightbox_metadata">
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This
world map shows the sites and frequencies of Neanderthal-like DNA found
in a set of human immunity genes. The orange represents findings of DNA
from Neanderthals, and the blue indicates DNA unique to modern
humans. The green represents DNA from a sister group to Neanderthals
called Denisovians.<br />
<br />
(American Journal of Human Genetics 2016)</div>
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</aside></div>
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<figure class="trb_ar_by_i_f"><img alt="Deborah Netburn" class="trb_ar_by_i" height="70" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-535fb8d7/turbine/la-bio-deborah-netburn/70/70x70" title="Deborah Netburn" width="70" /></figure><span class="trb_ar_by_nm_pm"><span class="trb_ar_by_nm_au" data-byline-withoutby=""><a class="trb_ar_by_nm_au_a" href="http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-deborah-netburn-staff.html#nt=byline" itemprop="author">Deborah Netburn</a></span><span class="trb_ar_by_b"></span><a class="trb_ar_by_cl" data-role="socialshare_sEmail" href="mailto:deborah.netburn@latimes.com?subject=Regarding:%20%22Your%20Neanderthal%20DNA%20may%20help%20you%20fight%20disease,%20and%20give%20you%20allergies%22">Contact Reporter</a></span></div>
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<time class="trb_ar_dateline_time" data-datetime-clock="3:00 AM" data-datetime-day="8" data-datetime-month="January" data-datetime-year="2016" datetime="2016-01-08T03:00:00PST" itemprop="datePublished"></time>
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If you sneeze when flowers bloom in the spring and tear up in the presence of a cat, your Neanderthal DNA may be to blame.<br />
About
2% of the DNA in most people alive today came from trysts between
ancient humans and their Neanderthal neighbors tens of thousands of
years ago, recent studies have shown. Now, scientists are trying to
determine what, if any, impact that Neanderthal genetic legacy has on
our contemporary lives.<br />
In a pair of papers published this week in the American Journal of
Human Genetics, two research teams report that in many people, a group
of genes that govern the first line of defense against pathogens was
probably inherited from Neanderthals.<br />
These same genes appear to
play a role in some people’s allergic reaction to things like pollen and
pet fur as well, the scientists said.<br />
<aside class="trb_ar_sponsoredmod" data-adloader-networktype="yieldmo" data-load-method="trb.vendor.yieldmo.init" data-load-type="method" data-role="delayload_item" data-screen-size="mobile" data-withinviewport-options="bottomOffset=100&topOffset=1000000">
</aside><strong><a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/popular/">See the most-read stories in Science this hour >></a></strong><br />
“It's a bit speculative, but perhaps this is some kind of trade-off,” said <a href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/bioinformatics/overview.html" target="_blank">Janet Kelso</a>, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and senior author of <a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297%2815%2900486-3" target="_blank">one of the new studies</a>.
“Increased resistance to bacterial infection was advantageous, but may
have resulted in some increased sensitivity to non-pathogenic
allergens.”<br />
<aside class="trb_embed " data-content-id="83824713" data-content-size="small" data-content-slug="la-sci-sn-modern-human-neanderthal-romania-20150622" data-content-subtype="story" data-content-type="story" data-role="socialshare_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer " data-state=" "> <div class="trb_embed_media ">
<span data-content-kicker="Related"></span><a class="trb_embed_media_link" data-content-media-present="true" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-modern-human-neanderthal-romania-20150622-story.html"><figure class="trb_embed_imageContainer_figure" data-role="imgsize_item"><img alt="Early man from Romania had close Neanderthal relatives, DNA shows" class="trb_embed_imageContainer_img" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-5584b56a/turbine/la-sci-sn-modern-human-neanderthal-romania-20150622" data-content-naturalheight="1563" data-content-naturalwidth="2048" data-height="200" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="300" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-5584b56a/turbine/la-sci-sn-modern-human-neanderthal-romania-20150622/300/300x169" title="Early man from Romania had close Neanderthal relatives, DNA shows" /></figure></a><div class="trb_embed_related" data-role="lightbox_metadata">
<a class="trb_embed_media_link" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-modern-human-neanderthal-romania-20150622-story.html"><span class="trb_embed_related_title">Early man from Romania had close Neanderthal relatives, DNA shows</span> </a></div>
</div>
</aside>About
50,000 years ago, the modern humans who left Africa encountered
Neanderthal settlements somewhere in the Middle East, scientists
believe. On some occasions, these meetings <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/06/science/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20100507" target="_blank">led to couplings</a> whose <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/29/science/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130" target="_blank">legacy is apparent</a> in the genomes of people with ancestors from Europe and Asia.<br />
Not everyone with Neanderthal DNA inherited the same genes. But the immunity genes appear to be more popular than others.<br />
Among
some Asian and European populations, the researchers found that these
particular Neanderthal genes can be found in 50% of people.<br />
“That's huge,” said <a href="https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/human-evolutionary-genetics/" target="_blank">Lluis Quintana-Murci</a>, an evolutionary geneticist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and senior author of the <a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297%2815%2900485-1" target="_blank">other study</a>. “It came as a big surprise to us.”<br />
The
findings imply that these Neanderthal genes must have served our
ancestors well if they are still hanging out in our genome today, and
especially at such high frequency, said <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/group/parhamlab/members/peter-parham/" target="_blank">Peter Parham</a>,
a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford School of
Medicine. If the DNA weren’t valuable, it would have been flushed out of
the human gene pool.<br />
“It suggests there was a benefit for the
migrating modern human and the archaic human to get together,” said
Parham, who wasn’t involved in the research. “What has survived is a
hybridization of those populations.”<br />
<aside class="trb_embed " data-content-id="82660526" data-content-size="small" data-content-slug="la-sci-sn-humans-neanderthals-20150128" data-content-subtype="story" data-content-type="story" data-role="socialshare_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer " data-state=" "> <div class="trb_embed_media ">
<span data-content-kicker="Related"></span><a class="trb_embed_media_link" data-content-media-present="true" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-humans-neanderthals-20150128-story.html"><figure class="trb_embed_imageContainer_figure" data-role="imgsize_item"><img alt="Manot Cave skull suggests link between Neanderthals and modern humans" class="trb_embed_imageContainer_img" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54c978c0/turbine/la-sci-sn-humans-neanderthals-20150128-thumbnail" data-content-naturalheight="1296" data-content-naturalwidth="1936" data-height="200" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="300" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54c978c0/turbine/la-sci-sn-humans-neanderthals-20150128-thumbnail/300/300x169" title="Manot Cave skull suggests link between Neanderthals and modern humans" /></figure></a><div class="trb_embed_related" data-role="lightbox_metadata">
<a class="trb_embed_media_link" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-humans-neanderthals-20150128-story.html"><span class="trb_embed_related_title">Manot Cave skull suggests link between Neanderthals and modern humans</span> </a></div>
</div>
</aside>Both
of the research groups report on a cluster of three genes — known
collectively as TLR6-TLR1-TLR10 — that make up part of the body's innate
immune response to invading bacteria and viruses.<br />
The innate
immune response is different from the acquired immune response that we
get through exposure to pathogens, either through vaccines or simply
getting sick. Innate immunity kicks in first, and if it’s successful, it
can destroy a pathogen in a few hours, before we even know we are sick.<br />
Because
this innate immune response is so useful, it has been a strong site of
positive selection over time, Quintana-Murci said.<br />
Though both
groups of researchers came to the same conclusion that Neanderthal DNA
plays an important role in immunity, the teams were asking different
questions at the outset of their studies.<br />
Quintana-Murci's group
is trying to understand how microscopic pathogens have influenced the
human genome as our species has evolved.<br />
Because infectious
diseases have killed so many people throughout human history, it makes
sense that genes involved in immunity would spread through natural
selection.<br />
<aside class="trb_embed " data-content-id="79096989" data-content-size="small" data-content-slug="la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130" data-content-subtype="story" data-content-type="story" data-role="socialshare_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer " data-state=" "> <div class="trb_embed_media ">
<span data-content-kicker="Related"></span><a class="trb_embed_media_link" data-content-media-present="true" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130-story.html"><figure class="trb_embed_imageContainer_figure" data-role="imgsize_item"><img alt="Neanderthal DNA lives on in modern humans, research shows" class="trb_embed_imageContainer_img" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-52e9e0cf/turbine/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130" data-content-naturalheight="1491" data-content-naturalwidth="2000" data-height="200" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="300" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-52e9e0cf/turbine/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130/300/300x169" title="Neanderthal DNA lives on in modern humans, research shows" /></figure></a><div class="trb_embed_related" data-role="lightbox_metadata">
<a class="trb_embed_media_link" href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-neanderthal-dna-20140130-story.html"><span class="trb_embed_related_title">Neanderthal DNA lives on in modern humans, research shows</span> </a></div>
</div>
</aside>For
their new study, Quintana-Murci and his colleagues examined 1,500
innate immunity genes in people and matched them up with a previously
published map of the Neanderthal DNA in the human genome.<br />
The team
calculated the percentage of Neanderthal DNA in innate immunity genes
as well as in other genes. When they compared them, they saw that innate
immunity genes had much higher proportions of Neanderthal sequences.<br />
Kelso's
group, on the other hand, is interested in ancient genomes like those
of Neanderthals. In particular, her team aims to uncover the functional
consequences of long-ago interbreeding between modern humans and
Neanderthals.<br />
The Max Planck Institute scientists analyzed the
genomes of thousands of present-day people from all over the world,
looking for evidence of extended regions with high similarity to the DNA
of Neanderthals. Then they checked how often they saw those
Neanderthal-like DNA sequences in humans alive today.<br />
“What emerged was this region containing three genes involved in the innate immune system,” she said.<br />
Both
research groups said there is still much work to be done to determine
exactly how this Neanderthal DNA helped humans survive.<br />
However,
they are already certain that interbreeding with Neanderthals aided
early humans as they faced new dangers after leaving Africa.<br />
“The
things we have inherited from Neanderthals are largely things that have
allowed us to adapt to our environment,” Kelso said. “This is perhaps
not completely surprising.”<br />
Because Neanderthals had lived in
Europe and western Asia for about 200,000 years before modern humans got
there, they were probably already well adapted to the local climate,
foods and pathogens.<br />
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“By interbreeding with these archaic people, modern humans could then acquire some of these adaptations,” Kelso said.<br />
Parham
of Stanford said the results are convincing, especially since they were
made by two independent groups that essentially confirmed each other.<br />
The results add to a growing body of work that highlights our debt to our Neanderthal relatives.</div>
“We're right in the beginning,” Parham
said. “This type of work has really lit a fire beneath archaeologists to
try to find more and more samples of Neanderthals so geneticists can do
more population studies.”Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-16109717601528498702016-01-21T09:48:00.001-08:002016-01-21T09:48:17.011-08:00Tiny Quantum Dots May Spell Doom For Deadly Superbug Infections<header class="entry__header" data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"headline"}}"><div class="headline">
<h2 class="headline__subtitle">
Scientists say the light-activated nanoparticles wipe out infectious bacteria without harming healthy cells</h2>
</div>
<div class="timestamp">
<span class="timestamp__date--published">01/20/2016 02:49 pm ET</span>
</div>
<ul class="author-list">
<li class="author-card">
<div class="author-card__details">
<a class="author-card__details__name" data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"author"}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-freeman">David Freeman</a>
Senior Science Editor, The Huffington Post
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</header>
<div class="top-media" data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"top_media"}}">
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<img class="image__src" height="266" src="http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/569eb8931f000023002163dd.jpeg" width="400" />
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iLexx via Getty Images </div>
<div class="image__credit">
</div>
<div class="image__caption">
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium
responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans.
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text">
Does <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":0}}" href="http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition" target="_blank">nanotechnology</a> hold the key to stopping <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":1}}" href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/antibiotic-resistant-bacteria" target="_blank">antibiotic-resistant bacteria</a> and the deadly infections they cause?<br />
Scientists in Colorado think it just might. They've developed
light-activated nanoparticles -- each roughly 20,000 times smaller than
the thickness of a single human hair -- and shown in lab tests that <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":2}}" href="http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2016/01/18/light-activated-nanoparticles-prove-effective-against-antibiotic-resistant" target="_blank">these "quantum dots" are more than 90 percent effective</a> at wiping out antibiotic-resistant germs like Salmonella, E. coli and Staphylococcus.<br />
"In our study, we tailored these quantum dots so they can selectively
kill these 'superbugs' without affecting other host mammalian cells (or
human cells)," <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":3}}" href="http://www.colorado.edu/chbe/prashant-nagpal" target="_blank">Dr. Prashant Nagpal</a>,
assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at the
University of Colorado at Boulder and a leader of the research, told The
Huffington Post in an email. "This means, after more careful clinical
trials, we can simply administer these dots to patients with infections
and it can cure the infection without potential effects (or side
effects) for healthy host cells."<br />
If Nagpal is right, that would be a very big deal.<br />
Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, fueled in part by doctors'
improper use of common antibiotics, represent an enormous public health
problem. In the U.S. alone, <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":4}}" href="http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/" target="_blank">infections caused by germs that can't be eradicated </a>with antibiotics sicken 2 million people and cause at least 23,000 deaths a year. And <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":5}}" href="http://theconversation.com/we-need-new-antibiotics-to-beat-superbugs-but-why-are-they-so-hard-to-find-36144" target="_blank">new, more effective antibiotics</a> have proven very hard to develop.<br />
<em><strong>(Story continues below image.)</strong></em></div>
<figure class="content-list-component image">
<span class="share-bar-image-wrapper" data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_image"}}"><img class="image__src" height="400" src="http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/569d55451a00005a00ab0cd2.jpeg" width="389" /></span>
<span class="image__credit">
courtesy Dr. Prashant Nagpal
</span>
<figcaption class="image__caption">
High-resolution electron micrograph of a cadmium telluride nanoparticle. Scale bar is 2 nanometers.
</figcaption>
</figure>
Previous research on
nanoparticles showed that those made of metals like gold and silver can
be harmful to healthy tissue as well as the target bacteria, according
to a written statement released by the university.<br />
But that kind of collateral damage doesn't seem to be a problem with the new quantum dots.<br />
Made of semiconducting materials like cadmium telluride instead of
metal, they can be tailored to specific infections, slipping inside the
disease-causing germs and, when activated by light, triggering chemical
reactions that destroy them.<br />
"We don't use any special light, and a typical weak light source (a
lamp, well-lighted room, sunlight, etc.) is enough to activate these
quantum dots," Nagpal said in the email.<br />
Nagpal foresees several applications for quantum dots, depending on
the nature of the infection. Infected cuts might simply be covered with
nanoparticle-impregnated bandages. Patients with systemic infections
might receive injections of quantum dots.<br />
In addition, hospital rooms and medical instruments might be treated
with a dot-containing disinfectant in order to reduce the risk of
spreading infections from patient to patient.<br />
But more research, including clinical trials, will be needed to
develop quantum dot therapy and prove its safety and effectiveness in
humans. Nagpal said he was seeking funding from federal agencies or
private donors to make that happen.<br />
Once tested, there is a chance that bacteria might adapt to the
therapy. But even so, Nagpal said, it should be easy to then tune
nanoparticles to "keep up in this evolutionary race" between bacteria
and measures to eradicate them.<br />
A <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":6}}" href="http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4542.html" target="_blank">paper describing the research</a> was published online on Monday in the journal Nature MaterialsEric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-58445981894810564322016-01-04T23:23:00.000-08:002016-01-31T16:43:22.553-08:00Why Don’t People Eat Turtle Soup Anymore?<h2>
http://www.slate.com/</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<div class="byline" id="main_byline">
By <a href="http://www.slate.com/authors.david_a_steen.html">David A. Steen</a>
</div>
<section class="content ">
<div class="parsys editorsNote">
</div>
<div class="newbody body parsys">
<div class="parbase image slate_image section">
<div class=" none">
<figure class="image inline " style="display: block; float: none; margin: 0 auto; width: 590px;"> <img alt="ast" height="285" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/wild_things/2016/01/04/turtle_soup_disappeared_because_people_ate_too_many_turtles/ast.jpeg.CROP.promo-xlarge2.jpeg" title="ast" width="400" /> <figcaption class="caption"><span>Alligator snapping turtles were the main ingredient in soups and stews.</span></figcaption> <div class="credit">
Courtesy of Sean Sterrett.</div>
<div class="credit">
<br /></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<div class="text text-1 parbase section">
They say you can get seven different kinds of meat from butchering a
turtle. Depending on what part of the turtle you’re chewing on, the
taste may be reminiscent of pork, or chicken, or veal, or fish, or
whatever … you get the picture. Perhaps this variability can partly
explain why turtle has been such a popular menu item throughout the
history of the United States. At least, it used to be. Not so long ago
you could find Campbell’s turtle soup sitting alongside minestrone and
tomato in grocery stores throughout the country. So what happened? How
and why did an American staple virtually vanish?<br />
</div>
<div class="text-2 text parbase section">
<a href="http://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting" target="_blank">It’s a question <em>Saveur</em> magazine recently tried to tackle</a>.
Now, if you ask me or anyone else who knows much about turtles and
turtle conservation, the answer is quite simple: There are not enough
turtles left to eat. For example, a picture of a few chefs hovering over
the carcass of a green sea turtle (<em>Chelonia mydas</em>) leads off the <em>Saveur</em>
article. Today green sea turtles, like all other species of sea
turtles, are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. If
you ate one in the United States, you would be committing a felony.<br />
</div>
<div class="text-3 text parbase section">
Turtles are one of the most imperiled groups of animals on the
planet. Habitat loss is probably their biggest threat; when a wetland is
drained, a field paved over, or a nesting beach overrun with
condominiums, there is simply no space left for turtles. But harvesting
too many for food has played a key role in driving down turtle
populations in this country and across the world. In fact, the market
for turtle soup was so intensive in the United States that many of our
turtle populations are still recovering from trapping and harvesting
that occurred decades ago. Ironically, the <em>Saveur</em> article
exploring the loss of turtle soup did not even consider that the meal’s
popularity played an important role in its own vanishing act. As turtles
disappeared, so did turtle soup.<br />
</div>
<div class="pullquotebox section">
<aside class="pullquote">
<div class="quote">
The <i>Saveur </i>article unwittingly demonstrates why so many species have become threatened or gone extinct.</div>
</aside>
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-4 section">
The <em>Saveur</em> article unwittingly demonstrates why so many
species have become threatened or gone extinct in the past few hundred
years. When we have a limited understanding of an animal’s natural
history and care only about its meat or <a href="http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/features0412/hats.html" target="_blank">feathers</a> or shells, we may overlook how our actions could be killing them off for good.<br />
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-5 section">
Turtle populations have an interesting survival strategy. Most young
turtles and eggs are eaten by predators like raccoons, herons, and big
fish. This wasn’t historically a problem, because turtles that do
survive to adulthood typically live for many, many years. They produce
so many eggs over their lifetime that chances are good at least a few
will survive long enough to replace their aging parents. The strategy
works quite well as long as we don’t take the adult turtles out of the
population—particularly the females—before they’ve had their many years
of reproduction. That is why even individual turtles are so important (<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2014/09/10/turtle_cpr_scientist_gives_mouth_to_mouth_resuscitation_video.html">and why I have been known to go to great lengths to help them</a>).<br />
</div>
<div class="text text-6 parbase section">
There are many different species of turtles, and we have different
relationships with (and recipes for) each of them. During the Great
Depression, gopher tortoises became such an important source of meat for
rural Southerners that they earned a new nickname, “Hoover chicken”
that honored, so to speak, our president at the time, Herbert Hoover.
That species is now <a href="http://www.fws.gov/northflorida/gophertortoise/gopher_tortoise_fact_sheet.html" target="_blank">federally threatened</a>
in Louisiana, Mississippi, and western Alabama, and is under protection
everywhere it occurs. Diamondback terrapins, the beautifully patterned
turtles inhabiting brackish waters along the East Coast, <a href="http://www.fws.gov/international/cites/cop16/diamondback-terrapin.html" target="_blank">were harvested so heavily for food</a> that the U.S. government started to get concerned about their vastly depleted populations more than 100 years ago.<br />
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-7 section">
Any species could end up in soup or stew, but in this country turtle
soup is synonymous with the alligator snapping turtle. Interestingly,
you would never know of our long history with alligator snapping turtles
from reading the <em>Saveur</em> magazine piece, because it never even
mentioned the species. That’s like writing an entire article about
cheeseburgers and never mentioning beef … or cows.<br />
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-8 section">
Alligator snapping turtles are the largest freshwater turtle in North America. Formerly considered one species, <a href="http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/new-species-snapping-turtles-animals-environment-science/" target="_blank">there are now two or three different kinds of alligator snapping turtle</a>, depending on whom you ask. They are quite impressive: Big old alligator snappers can reach well over 100 pounds. And <em>old</em>
is right, these turtles can live past 50 years, if not a century; they
don’t even become sexually mature and able to reproduce until after
their first decade of life. In the 1960s and 1970s we almost wiped out
alligator snapping turtles because so many adults were harvested for
soup. One former collector reported that he and his colleagues removed
several tons of these animals from one river in Georgia <em>every day</em> during the 1970s and only stopped when they weren’t catching enough anymore to make it worthwhile.<br />
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-9 section">
That river is the Flint River, which I lived next to from 2004 to
2007. Despite having lived near excellent alligator snapping turtle
habitat, I have seen only a few of these animals in my life. It is hard
to imagine the Flint River crawling with literally tons of giant
alligator snapping turtles. Maybe someday our streams and rivers will
again be chock-full of these beasts, but it won’t be during my lifetime.<br />
</div>
<div class="text parbase text-10 section">
Fortunately, alligator snapping turtles are now afforded some protection in every state in which they occur, and <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/alligator-snapping-turtle-12-22-2015.html" target="_blank">at this very moment</a>
the federal government is under pressure to protect them under the
Endangered Species Act. Even Louisiana, once the hub of the turtle soup
industry, outlawed commercial collection of this species in 2004. Given
that these animals received protection only recently, it will be a long
time before populations rebound to their historic levels, if ever. In
some restaurants you can still find traditional turtle soup that
contains alligator snapping turtle, but these days the animals come from
farms and were not collected from wild populations.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="parbase image slate_image section">
<div class=" none">
<figure class="image inline " style="display: block; float: none; margin: 0 auto; width: 590px;"> <img alt="st" height="224" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/wild_things/2016/01/04/turtle_soup_disappeared_because_people_ate_too_many_turtles/st.jpeg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpeg" title="st" width="400" /> <figcaption class="caption"><span>Even if you can legally eat a snapping turtle, there's another good reason why you shouldn't.</span></figcaption> <div class="credit">
Courtesy of Sean Sterrett.</div>
<div class="credit">
<br /></div>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<div class="text-11 text parbase section">
The turtle hunters from the <em>Saveur</em> article were in Virginia, and their quarry was a different kind of snapping turtle, <em>Chelydra serpentina</em>.
This species is still relatively abundant in Virginia, but commercial
collection is illegal. Commercial collection of even relatively common
turtle species has recently been outlawed throughout much the
southeastern United States <a href="http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1618565,00.html" target="_blank">in response to an increasing demand from Asia</a>.
This alarming and increasing demand had started to put an unsustainable
strain on our turtle populations. But in some states, depending on the
species, you can still take a couple for personal use.<br />
</div>
<aside class="top-comment top-comment-link">
<div class="title">
<span>Top Comment</span></div>
<div class="quote">
I blame the decline on the irrational fear of GMOs.
Mutagen-enhanced turtles are larger, tastier, and healthier than their
non-ninja counterparts, but the scaremongers would have you believe that
it's somehow wrong to eat them. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">More...</a>
<br />
</div>
<div class="comment-options">
<a class="count labeled" href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2016/01/04/turtle_soup_disappeared_because_people_ate_too_many_turtles.html#comments">92 Comments</a>
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</div>
</aside>
<div class="text-12 text parbase section">
Even if people are allowed to eat a few turtles every once in a
while, there is another important reason why we may not want to: It’s
not just bad for the turtles; it’s bad for us. Remember how turtles can
live for decades? Well, if that turtle is sitting in polluted water, it
is going to be absorbing and consuming contaminants for many years. This
unfortunate habit has made the snapping turtle (<em>Chelydra serpentina</em>)—the same species that features heavily in the <em>Saveur</em>
article—a model organism for studying how pollutants persist in
wetlands. For example, despite a ban since 1979 on the manufacture of
polychlorinated biphenyls, turtles in some areas still have alarmingly
high concentrations of PCBs in their blood and their meat. PCBs can
cause a wide range of serious health problems in people. And forget
tuna—if you want to avoid mercury, you should cut snapping turtle out of
your diet. Patterns of pollutants differ depending on which swamp the
turtle has been sitting in for the past 50 years, but I think I’ll pass
either way.<br />
</div>
<div class="text-13 text parbase section">
Turtle soup in the United States did not fade away simply because our
palates changed. Our taste for turtle soup exploded to unsustainable
levels and caused the turtles to disappear first. They still haven’t
come back.<br />
</div>
</div>
</section>
<br />
Dr. David A. Steen researches wildlife ecology and conservation biology, and blogs about his work at <a href="http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/" target="_blank">www.livingalongsidewildlife.com</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/AlongsideWild" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-63996086446081009332015-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:002016-01-31T16:43:22.557-08:00Fish Success Story: Cod Makes a Comeback
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By Katharine Gammon | Takepart.com
<abbr>October 27, 2015 4:54 PM</abbr>
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Fish Success Story: Cod Makes a Comeback</div>
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The cod is coming back.<br />
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The species that was for centuries a mainstay of
the American and Canadian economies had virtually vanished off the
Northeastern North American coast by the 1990s owing <a data-rapid_p="9" href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/09/16/ocean-wildlife-population-down-half">to overfishing</a>. That led regulators in 1992 to impose a moratorium on cod fishing.<br />
It appears to have worked.<br />
New
research shows that cod biomass has increased from the tens of tons to
more than 200,000 tons within the last decade. This spring, scientists
documented large increases in cod abundance and size for the first time
since the moratorium in the more northerly spawning groups, according to
a <a data-rapid_p="10" href="http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/cjfas-2015-0346">study</a> published Monday in the <em>Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences</em>.<br />
“Cod was historically one of the most important fish stocks in the world,” said George Rose, director of the <a data-rapid_p="11" href="https://www.mi.mun.ca/departments/centreforfisheriesecosystemsresearch/">Center for Fisheries Ecosystems Research</a>
at the University of Newfoundland in Canada and author of the new
report on the cod’s recovery. “When the stocks collapsed in the 1990s,
it became the icon of all the bad things we are doing to the ocean, and
in many ways, it changed how we deal with our oceans worldwide.”<br />
For
hundreds of years, cod were so common—and so huge—that people reported
being able to walk across their backs. Cape Cod was named after the
fish, and salt cod is credited with sustaining explorers crossing the
Atlantic from Spain and Iceland.<br />
When the fishing ban took effect,
cod had dwindled to 5 percent of its historic biomass. The moratorium
threw 22,000 fishers and processing plant threw employees in more than
400 coastal communities in the United States and Canada out of work.<br />
<strong>RELATED: <a data-rapid_p="12" href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/11/14/google-wants-you-protect-ocean-overfishing">Google Wants You to Fight Overfishing</a></strong><br />
The moratorium played a big part in the cod’s recovery, as did the return of the fish’s food source, according to the study.<br />
Around
the time that cod stocks crashed, a parallel collapse occurred in
populations of plankton and capelin, a small smelt fish that provides
sustenance for larger fish. “Capelin are the main conduit of energy,
from plankton right up to the top of the food chain,” said Rose. “We
still don’t know exactly why, but it was really uncertain whether cod
could survive the changes at all.”<br />
The first hint of the comeback
came in 2008, when researchers saw regrouping of cod on their breeding
grounds along with the return of the capelin.<br />
The reasons for the
return of the capelin are a mystery, but Rose said it pointed to the
need for a more comprehensive approach to fishery management. “This is
one of the most important examples why we need to understand the full
ecosystem and not just the stocks of fish,” he said.<br />
Cod’s future
is still in question. Stocks are low in New England and other parts of
the fish’s range where the ocean is warming. But in more northern areas,
it is thriving.<br />
<div id="yui_3_18_1_1_1451606240210_512">
He said there are indications that climate change will increase cod populations in Newfoundland and other northern regions.</div>
<div id="yui_3_18_1_1_1451606240210_509">
But
don’t expect cod on your dinner plate anytime soon. The Canadian
fishing ban remains in place, and the U.S. has also tightened
restrictions on cod fishing.</div>
“Nature has kind of given us a second chance,” Rose said. “We don’t want to blow it this time.”Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-21599362562376053912015-12-29T12:38:00.003-08:002015-12-29T12:38:49.200-08:00Scientists discover furry new post-apocalyptic critter that survived demise of the dinosaurs<h1 data-pb-field="customFields.web_headline" itemprop="headline">
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<span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sarah-kaplan"><span itemprop="name">Sarah Kaplan</span></a></span> <span class="pb-timestamp" content="2015-10-05T07:39-500" itemprop="datePublished">October 5</span> <span class="pb-tool email"><a href="mailto:sarah.kaplan@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20%27Scientists%20discover%20furry%20new%20post-apocalyptic%20critter%20that%20survived%20demise%20of%20the%20dinosaurs%27"><span class="fa fa-envelope"></span></a></span> <span class="tweet-authors"><span class="pb-twitter-follow"></span> </span> </div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="1bd00ed791"></a> <img alt="A rendering Kimbetopsalis. (Sarah Shelley)" class="zoom-in" height="285" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/10/Kimbetopsalis_600_white.jpeg" style="max-width: 596px;" width="400" /> <div class="pb-caption" style="max-width: 596px;">
A rendering of Kimbetopsalis. (Sarah Shelley)</div>
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Sixty-six
million years ago, a chunk of space rock the size of a mountain slammed
into the Earth. The planet would never be the same.<br />
Debris from
the impact went flying into the air, forming clouds so thick they
blocked out the sun. Earthquakes shook the ground and sent massive
tsunami waves roiling toward shorelines. At the same time — maybe
unrelated to the impact, maybe exacerbated by it — a vast flow of lava
was flooding across India, oozing ash and noxious gases that caused the
climate to fluctuate like a yo-yo and may have helped kill off anything
that survived the initial cataclysm.<br />
It was not a good time to be
alive, and most species made a swift exit from the global stage:
Vegetation withered. Ocean life gasped for air and energy, then
collapsed. Gone were the fearsome Tyrannosaurus, the winged Pterosaurs,
the massive Triceratops with its three horns and bony neck frill. The
dinosaurs’ 100 million-year reign had ended. And when the smoke
cleared, a new hero had taken over.<br />
It was buck-toothed and furry
and had the goofy appearance of a character from a children’s cartoon.
Instead of Earth-shaking stomps, it likely moved with a rodent’s fearful
scurry.<br />
Its name is <em>Kimbetopsalis simmonsae, </em>scientists say in a paper <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zoj.12336/abstract">published</a> Monday
in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. And although it was
only about three feet long and no more intimidating than a beaver, it
was one of the largest animals around. If Tyrannosaurus was the king of
the Cretaceous, <em>Kimbetopsalis </em>was early royalty during the millennia that followed — an era we now call the “Age of the Mammals.”<br />
<em>Kimbetopsalis, </em>which
was recently discovered among the shifting sands and spooky rock
formations of New Mexico’s badlands, was something of an evolutionary
dark horse. First born in the Jurassic period, the fuzzy creature (<em>creatures</em> really — <em>Kimbetopsalis </em>represents a whole new genus) bided its time for a million centuries while dinosaurs tromped about.<br />
After the meteorite-induced apocalypse, “<span style="font-weight: 400;">all this ecological space became available and the mammals went a bit nuts,” explained <a href="http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/geosciences/people?indv=3670">Sarah Shelley</a>, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and a co-author on the paper. </span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Almost no one went more nuts than <em>Kimbetopsalis</em>,
which grew from tiny proportions to the size of a very large beaver
over the course of just 500,000 years — a mere blink of an eye in
evolutionary terms. Paleontologists believe it had a beaver’s broad face
and chunky frame as well, though it lacked a paddle-like tail. </span><br />
Though it looks like a rodent, <em>Kimbetopsalis </em>has
no living descendants. But it is one of the longest-living groups of
mammal in history: its 160-million-year run is longer than that of any
mammal species alive today.<br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo-left modal-1" style="width: 300px;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="77c1cf6cb7"></a> <img alt="The teeth of Kimbetopsalis is pictured in this undated handout photo provided by Tom Williamson. Scientists on October 5, 2015, announced the discovery in northwestern New Mexico's badlands of the fossil remains of Kimbetopsalis simmonsae, a plant-eating rodent-like mammal boasting buck-toothed incisors like a beaver that lived just a few hundred thousand years after the mass extinction, a blink of the eye in geological time. REUTERS/Tom Williamson/Handout via Reuters ATTENTION EDITORS - NO SALES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS" class="zoom-in" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/10/2015-10-05T042052Z_01_TOR600_RTRIDSP_3_SCIENCE-MAMMAL-300x200.jpg" /> <span class="pb-caption">The
teeth of Kimbetopsalis are pictured in this undated handout photo
provided by Tom Williamson. (Tom Williamson/Handout via Reuters)</span></div>
<div class="inline-content inline-photo-left modal-1" style="width: 300px;">
<span class="pb-caption"> </span> </div>
Proof of <em>Kimbetopsalis’s </em>existence
comes from a few teeth and a fragment of skull discovered during an
archaeological dig in a remote New Mexico desert last summer. The
fossils were uncovered by Carissa Raymond, a sophomore at the University
of Nebraska out on her first dig.<br />
Raymond had never even taken a
mammal biology class and had no formal training in fossil finding at
the time. But when she called over project leader Thomas Williamson,
curator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, he
“grinned right away,” Shelley recalled.<br />
A new genus had just been discovered.<br />
“It’s rare for anybody to find one of these,” Williamson said in a University of Nebraska <a href="http://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/unltoday/article/undergrad-discovers-new-mammal-species/">press release</a>. “I wish I had found it.” <br />
Teeth
are some of the most telling fossils you can find when identifying a
new species, Shelley explained — they’re the best indicators of what an
animal ate, and what you eat pretty much determines everything about
you. From those fragments, Shelley and her colleagues gained a rough
understanding of how the ancient mammal looked and lived.<br />
Though
it’s now a dry and dramatic desert, at the time New Mexico would have
been a lush semitropical forest, full of sustenance for an enterprising
young herbivore. <em>Kimbetopsalis </em>had huge, knife-like incisors
were ideal for gnawing on plants. And though predators certainly
existed, very distant predecessors of modern cattle and horses, life
would have been a lot safer than it was before the end-Cretaceous
extinction.<br />
<em>Kimbetopsalis </em>was among the biggest, but it
was hardly the only mammal to flourish in the newly dinosaur-free world.
After epochs of living in the shadows of their larger,
lizard-like contemporaries, the early years of what’s now called
the Palaeogene period saw the rise of hoofed animals and opossum-like
marsupials, bats and even early primates. It pays, it would seem, to be
small, good at hiding and willing to wait for a meteorite to wipe out
your competitors.<br />
The rapid growth and proliferation of the <em>Kimbetopsalis</em> is a testament to the power of environmental change and the persistence of early mammals, researchers say.<br />
“The history of life hinges on moments that can reset the course of evolution,” <span class="fn author-name"><a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/stephen-brusatte-133378" rel="author">Stephen Brusatte</a>, a professor of v</span>ertebrate paleontology at the University of Edinburgh and another co-author on the paper, wrote in an essay for <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-we-found-prehistoric-beaver-that-helped-mammals-inherit-earth-after-dinosaurs-were-wiped-out-48571">the Conversation</a>.
Amid the destruction and rapid change caused by the meteorite impact,
“dinosaurs couldn’t cope and all of a sudden they were gone. Their size
and strength couldn’t save them. Mammals fared better, and now one
species of brainy ape occupies that dominant place in nature that was
once held by the dinosaurs.”<br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal horizontal-photo modal-2">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="d73c5909cf"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/10/2015-10-05T042058Z_01_TOR601_RTRIDSP_3_SCIENCE-MAMMAL.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/10/2015-10-05T042058Z_01_TOR601_RTRIDSP_3_SCIENCE-MAMMAL.jpg&w=480" height="266" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/10/2015-10-05T042058Z_01_TOR601_RTRIDSP_3_SCIENCE-MAMMAL.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br /> <span class="pb-caption">The
fieldwork team (L to R): Sarah Shelley, Eric Davidson, Carissa Raymond,
Steve Brusatte, Ross Secord, are pictured in this undated handout
photo, taken in New Mexico and provided by Tom Williamson. (Tom
Williamson/Handout via Reuters)</span> </div>
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-11084425623251458192015-12-23T15:34:00.004-08:002015-12-23T15:34:50.904-08:00Scientists suggest a new, earth-shaking twist on the demise of the dinosaurs<div data-pb-field="customFields.web_headline" itemprop="headline">
<span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/joel-achenbach"><span itemprop="name">Joel Achenbach</span></a></span> October 19</div>
<span class="pb-timestamp" content="2015-10-01T02:00-500" itemprop="datePublished"></span><div class="pb-sig-line hasnt-headshot has-0-headshots hasnt-bio is-not-column">
<span class="pb-timestamp" content="2015-10-01T02:00-500" itemprop="datePublished"> </span> <span class="pb-tool email"><a href="mailto:achenbachj@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20%27Scientists%20suggest%20a%20new,%20earth-shaking%20twist%20on%20the%20demise%20of%20the%20dinosaurs%27"><span class="fa fa-envelope"></span></a></span> <span class="tweet-authors"><span class="pb-twitter-follow"></span> </span> </div>
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal horizontal-photo modal-0">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="e117a4347f"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Merlin_1278842ab.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Merlin_1278842ab.jpg&w=480" height="340" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Merlin_1278842ab.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br /> <span class="pb-caption"> </span></div>
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal horizontal-photo modal-0">
<span class="pb-caption">An
illustration of the Chicxulub impact on the Yucatan Peninsula in
Mexico, seen from 100 kilometers (km) altitude. (D. van Ravenswaay/Photo
Researchers, Inc)</span> </div>
New research suggests that the
asteroid or comet that slammed into the Earth 66 million years ago
rocked the planet so violently that it accelerated a massive volcanic
eruption in India, a double catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs and
70 percent of the Earth's species.<br />
The study, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aac7549">published Thursday in the journal Science</a>,
puts a twist on the consensus explanation of the mass extinction at the
end of the Cretaceous period. Scientists have long been confident that a
mountain-sized object crashed into the planet, leaving traces even
today of a vast crater at the tip of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.<br />
[<em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/10/02/dont-worry-matt-damon-wont-get-stuck-on-mars-nasa-cant-get-him-there/">Don’t worry. Matt Damon won’t get stuck on Mars. NASA can’t get him there.</a></em>]<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.5;">They’ve
also known that massive volcanism in India was happening around the
same time, spreading lava across a huge region known as the Deccan
Traps. The coincidence of those two events initially hinted at
causality, but subsequent dating of the Deccan Traps formations
indicated that the flood of basaltic lava began long before
the cataclysmic impact.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal vertical-photo modal-1">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="bbda32b40b"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/2300-DeccanTraps1001-v2.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/2300-DeccanTraps1001-v2.jpg&w=480" height="400" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/2300-DeccanTraps1001-v2.jpg&w=1484" width="249" /><br /> </div>
<br />
With
the new data, causality's once again in play. The asteroid or comet
didn’t cause the initial eruption, but it could have intensified it,
according to the paper.<br />
The Chicxulub impact – named after a town
in the Yucatan – created earthquakes of magnitude 11 in the vicinity of
the crater, the authors say. Magnitude 9 earthquakes would have been
felt around the planet, they say.<br />
[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/22/a-lost-world-of-dinosaurs-thrived-in-the-snowy-dark-of-alaska-researchers-say/"><em>A ‘lost world’ of dinosaurs thrived in the snowy dark of Alaska</em></a>]<br />
The
seismic energy made the planet's crust more permeable. Molten rock deep
in the interior began flowing through fractures. As that magma expanded<strong>,</strong> gasses in the solution began forming bubbles. As with a shaken soda bottle, the results were likely explosive.<br />
“Once that’s initiated, it becomes a kind of runaway process,” said <a href="http://www.bgc.org/people/each_person/renne_r.html">Paul Renne</a>, a University of California, Berkeley geologist and lead author of the new paper.Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-41625900032296100272015-12-23T15:31:00.000-08:002015-12-23T15:31:28.612-08:00First ever evidence of a swimming, shark-eating dinosaur<h2>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/</h2>
When it wasn't putting T. rex to shame, the dinosaur Spinosaurus spent its time swimming -- and chowing down on sharks.<br />
Until now, scientists didn't have any proof that there were swimming dinosaurs. There were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria#Distribution">some marine reptiles</a> prowling the seas, to be sure, but paleontologists couldn't find fossils that put dinosaurs in the water.<br />
New fossil evidence <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1258750">published Thursday in Science</a> changes that, and the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus<i> </i>is breaking
records left and right. It's now the largest predatory dinosaur to have
ever roamed the planet — nearly 10 feet longer than the largest T. rex
specimen — although the carnivore was still <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/04/this-is-the-kind-of-dinosaur-you-find-in-hollywood/">dwarfed by some of its plant-eating contemporaries</a>. But more importantly, Spinosaurus<i> </i>has the distinction of providing our first ever evidence for a semi-aquatic dinosaur.<br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-center horizontal-photo modal-0">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="b195aaf60c"></a> <img alt="w-Dinoswimmer" class="zoom-in" height="302" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2014/09/w-Dinoswimmer.jpg" style="max-width: 600px;" width="400" /> </div>
<br />
Spinosaurus
was discovered in the Sahara more than a century ago by German
paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, but all of his
fossils were destroyed during World War II.<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/11/the-hunt-for-spinosaurus/">When a partial skeleton was uncovered in the Moroccan Sahara</a>
-- in a place once home to a massive system of rivers full of all sorts
of sharks and other predators -- scientists had a new clue that there
was something fishy about the massive dino.<br />
In addition to
revealing a record-breaking length, digital modeling of the skeleton
suggested a whole fleet of aquatic adaptations. Tiny nostrils, placed
far back on the middle of the dinosaur's skull, presumably allowed it to
breathe as it swam at the surface. It also had openings at the end of
its snout that are reminiscent of ones in crocodiles and alligators. In
the modern animals, these openings <a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-dermal-pressure-receptors.htm">house receptors</a> that let them sense movement in the water.<br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal horizontal-photo modal-1">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="1a9acdf0a2"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/09/10/Health-Environment-Science/Images/ibrahim3HR1410387491.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/09/10/Health-Environment-Science/Images/ibrahim3HR1410387491.jpg&w=480" height="300" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/09/10/Health-Environment-Science/Images/ibrahim3HR1410387491.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br />
<span class="pb-caption">Paleontologists
Nizar Ibrahim, left, and David Martill examine</span><br />
<span class="pb-caption"> a spine fragment of
Spinosaurus found in southeastern Morocco.</span><br />
<span class="pb-caption"> (Photo by Cristiano Dal Sasso
)</span><br />
<span class="pb-caption"> </span> </div>
Huge, slanted, interlocking teeth seem perfectly
shaped to catch fish, and hook-like claws would have been ideal for
catching hold of slippery prey under the water. Big, flat feet (perhaps
even webbed) would have been well-suited to paddling water or stomping
through mud, and some unusually dense limb bones (more like those seen
in penguins than those found in other dinosaurs, the researchers report)
would have allowed it to keep itself under the water, instead of
floating.<br />
The dinosaur's skeletal shape indicates that it would
have been a strange sight to us on land. The Spinosaurus's center of
gravity was pushed forward by its long neck, so it was almost certainly
impossible for it to walk on two legs. In fact, the Spinosaurus's legs
and pelvis are quite like those seen in early whales -- much better for
paddling than for walking. Like whales, these dinosaurs probably evolved
from land-dwelling ancestors to become semi-aquatic.<br />
<br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal modal-2 horizontal-photo">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="0900443a38"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2014/09/ibrahim5HR1410387492-1024x871.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2014/09/ibrahim5HR1410387492-1024x871.jpg&w=480" height="340" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2014/09/ibrahim5HR1410387492-1024x871.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br />
<span class="pb-caption">Skull
reconstruction of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus showing discovered</span><br />
<span class="pb-caption"> bones in
blue. (Image by Davide Bonadonna, Ibrahim et al., Science/AAAS)</span><br />
<span class="pb-caption"> </span> </div>
Scientists
aren't quite sure how Spinosaurus moved when it left the water -- which
it must have done, at the very least, to lay and nest eggs.
Spinosaurus didn't have the kind of limbs that scientists would expect
in a four-legged animal, but it also couldn't have balanced on its hind
legs for very long.<br />
"I think that we have to face the fact that
the Jurassic Park folks have to go back to the drawing board on
Spinosaurus," co-author and University of Chicago paleontologist Paul
Sereno said in a teleconference held by Science on Wednesday. "It was
not a balancing, two-legged animal on land. It would have been something
very peculiar."<br />
This isn't to say that Spinosaurus wouldn't have
been an impressive sight on land. "It would have been a fearsome
animal. There's no question about it, you would not want to meet this
animal on land," Sereno said. "But it was not gallivanting across the
landscape."<br />
While paleontologists continue to puzzle over how the
Spinosaurus managed to walk, you can visit a life-size skeletal replica
of the creature at the National Geographic Museum in Washington. <a href="http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/exhibits/2014/09/12/spinosaurus-lost-giant-cretaceous/">The exhibit</a> will run Sept. 12th through April 12.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-86983549770861788612015-12-23T15:23:00.000-08:002015-12-23T15:23:24.321-08:00Were dinosaurs warm or cold blooded? Ancient eggshells could reveal the truth.<h1 data-pb-field="customFields.web_headline" itemprop="headline">
https://img.washingtonpost.com</h1>
<div class="pb-sig-line hasnt-headshot has-0-headshots hasnt-bio is-not-column">
<span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rachel-feltman"><span itemprop="name">Rachel Feltman</span></a></span> <span class="pb-timestamp" content="2015-10-13T11:00-500" itemprop="datePublished">October 13</span> <span class="pb-tool email"><a href="mailto:rachel.feltman@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20%27Were%20dinosaurs%20warm%20or%20cold%20blooded?%20Ancient%20eggshells%20could%20reveal%20the%20truth.%27"><span class="fa fa-envelope"></span></a></span> <span class="tweet-authors"><span class="pb-twitter-follow"></span> </span> </div>
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-center horizontal-photo modal-0">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="58f87dadf8"></a> <img alt="An artist’s rendering of oviraptorid theropods. (Doyle Trankina and Gerald Grellet-Tinner)" class="zoom-in" height="277" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Oviraptor_Nesting.jpeg" style="max-width: 590px;" width="400" /> <div class="pb-caption" style="max-width: 590px;">
An artist’s rendering of oviraptorid theropods. (Doyle Trankina and Gerald Grellet-Tinner)</div>
</div>
Were dinosaurs warm or cold blooded? <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/ncomms9296">New data suggests</a> that the answer might be a simple "yes".<br />
Back
in the day, paleontologists assumed that dinosaurs were all
lizard-like, and had the slow metabolisms to match — making them cold
blooded, like alligators. These kinds of animals, more formally known as
ectotherms, have to get most of their body heat from their environment.
Endotherms, like humans and other mammals, are capable of producing
most of the heat they need internally.<br />
[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/29/fossils-might-reveal-the-colors-of-ancient-critters/"><em>Fossils might reveal the colors of ancient critters</em></a>]<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.5;">Now we know that many dinosaurs were actually bird ancestors. Birds are endothermic, and have super fast metabolisms.</span><br />
So did some dinosaurs have bird-like metabolisms, and the hot blood to match? <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/ncomms9296">A study published Tuesday in Nature Communications</a> claims to have found the answer in fossilized eggshells.<br />
The basic findings line up with what <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/05/28/dinosaurs-may-have-been-warm-blooded-after-all/">most recent research in the area has concluded</a>: Dinosaur metabolisms were all over the place.<br />
"It's
important to realize that there's actually a whole sliding scale of
physiology," even in the modern animal kingdom, study author <a href="http://epss.ucla.edu/people/faculty/721/">Robert Eagle</a>
of the University of California told The Post. Birds have metabolic
rates that put humans to shame, he explained, making them arguably more
"warm blooded" than we are. And then you have critters like sloths, that
are on the slowest, coolest end of the warm blooded spectrum. "So the
real question is where dinosaurs fell on that spectrum," he said.<br />
[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/06/09/a-crummy-dinosaur-fossil-turns-out-to-hold-75-million-year-old-blood-and-proteins/"><em>A crummy dinosaur fossil turns out to hold 75 million-year-old blood and proteins</em></a>]<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.5;">That's where Eagle's work comes in. He and his colleagues analyzed the chemical makeup of ancient eggshells, using a technique </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21700837" style="line-height: 1.5;">previously perfected on teeth</a><span style="line-height: 1.5;">
to estimate the temperature of the body they formed in. By measuring
the abundance of chemical bonds between two rare, heavy isotopes
(carbon-13 and oxygen-18) in calcium carbonate minerals, scientists can
estimate body temperature. A mineral that forms at colder temperatures
will have more of these bonds than the same mineral formed at a higher
temperature. In the case of an egg, scientists can use this ratio to
estimate the temperature of the mother's body when she formed it. </span><br />
<div class="inline-content inline-photo inline-photo-normal horizontal-photo modal-1">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="e5fd1b3565"></a> <img class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Large_Titanosaur_clutch_Cleaned-1024x706.jpg&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Large_Titanosaur_clutch_Cleaned-1024x706.jpg&w=480" height="275" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/10/Large_Titanosaur_clutch_Cleaned-1024x706.jpg&w=1484" width="400" /><br /> <span class="pb-caption">A large clutch of Titanosaur eggs. (Luis Chiappe)</span> </div>
After
showing that this measurement worked in eggs from modern animals, Eagle
and his colleagues tested fossilized eggs. Many showed signs of decay
that would alter any conclusions about temperature, but they were able
to analyze two species successfully — and found signs of a range of
metabolic rates.<br />
One was a long-necked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanosaur">titanosaur</a>
sauropod, and it indicated a maternal body temperature of about 100
degrees Fahrenheit, comparable to large mammals today. Another species
— a T. rex-like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oviraptoridae">oviraptorid</a> — indicated a cooler 90-degree body temperature, which is lower than most modern mammals.<br />
But
chances are that both of them were at least somewhat endothermic, Eagle
explained. Analysis of the soil around the oviraptorid eggs indicates
that the air temperature may have been lower than their body
temperature.<br />
"We can't take just body temperature and jump to the
conclusion that they weren't cold blooded," Eagle said, "but combined
with other data, it's consistent with them having some kind of
intermediary metabolism. This suggests that maybe they were warm
blooded, but hadn't developed the high level of temperature regulation
seen in mammals and birds today. They were kind of part way to evolving
endothermy."<br />
Since oviraptorids like this one were close
relatives to the earliest birds, Eagle hopes that studying the
evolutionary lineage more closely will reveal when and how metabolisms
sped up so drastically.<br />
"There's just a massive spectrum of different questions we can ask now," he said.<br />
<br />
Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269068950412827556.post-85168382951541471492015-12-22T02:15:00.001-08:002021-06-20T16:09:06.488-07:00Scientists Have Drafted a Complete Tree of Life <br /><a href="http://kinja.com/maddiestone">Maddie Stone</a><a href="http://gizmodo.com/scientists-have-drafted-a-complete-tree-of-life-1731833326">9/19/15 3:00pm</a><br /><br /><img height="182" src="http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--e9n2ffWn--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1437644068964091938.jpg" width="400" /> <br /><br />Humans, bacteria, daffodils: We’re a diverse bunch on the surface, but trace each and every Earthling back far enough, and you’ll arrive at a common ancestor. For the first time, scientists have built a comprehensive tree of life that binds us all together. <br /><br />A draft of the One Tree, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/09/16/1423041112">published Friday</a> in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, includes the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes. It shows how all of the major branches relate to one another and traces each individual group back to its shared beginnings in a prebiotic soup 3.5 billion years ago. <br /><br />“This is the first real attempt to connect the dots and put it all together,” said principal investigator Karen Cranston of Duke University in a statement. “Think of it as Version 1.0.”<br /> <br /><br /><img height="365" src="http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--c7OBpyBL--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1437644069117432610.jpg" width="400" /> <br /><br />This family tree of Earth’s lifeforms is considered a first draft of the 3.5-billion-year history of how life evolved and diverged. Image Credit: opentreeoflife.org<br /><br />To build the tree of all life, researchers compiled thousands of smaller trees that had already been published online. One of the big challenges was simply accounting for the different taxonomic names, spellings and misspellings that crop up across scientific papers. For instance, in a strange fluke of taxonomy that I can only hope has inspired some fantastically weird artwork, spiny anteaters once shared their scientific name with moray eels. <br /><br />The tree will continue to receive updates over time, of course — scientists are still discovering new species of plants, animals and fungi every year, and with our growing arsenal of genomic sequencing tools, we’re finally beginning to unlock the vast diversity of the microbial world. The team behind the tree is developing software tools that’ll enable researchers to log in and revise things as new data is collected. <br /><br />In the meanwhile, the biology nerds in the room can start exploring all of this juicy data right now. The tree, along with the raw data and source code that built it, is available for free online at <a href="https://tree.opentreeoflife.org/">https://tree.opentreeoflife.org</a>. <br /><br />[Read the full <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/09/16/1423041112">scientific paper</a> at PNAS h/t <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-09-tree-life-million-species.html">phys.org</a>]Eric Horninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00116274955760726624noreply@blogger.com0