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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have sequenced the DNA from four frozen hairs of a Greenlander who died 4,000 years ago in a study they say takes genetic technology into several new realms. Surprisingly, the long-dead man appears to have originated in Siberia and is unrelated to modern Greenlanders, Morten Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues found. "This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit," the researchers wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Not only can...

Bird influenza viruses have a variety of strategies to cross the species barrier and spreadThe 2009 H1N1 influenza virus used a new strategy to cross from birds into humans, a warning that it has more than one trick up its sleeve to jump the species barrier and become virulent. In a report in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, researchers show that the H1N1, or swine flu, virus adopted a new mutation in one of its genes distinct from the mutations found in previous flu viruses, including...

We are currently the only human species alive, but as recently as 24,000 years ago another one walked the earth — the Neanderthals. These extinct humans were the closest relatives we had, and tantalizing new hints from researchers suggest that we might have been intimately close indeed. The mystery of whether Neanderthals and us had sex might be solved if the entire Neanderthal genome is reported soon as expected. The matter of why they died and we succeeded, however, remains an open question. Maybe not nasty and brutish, but still short Why did Neanderthals go extinct? Roughly 30,000 years ago,...

Humans are unusual animals by any stretch of the imagination, ones that have changed the face of the world around us. What makes us so special when compared to the rest of the animal kingdom? Some things we take completely for granted might surprise you. -

SEDIMENT cores from a small Arctic lake in Canada stretching back 200,000 years show unprecedented gains in global warming since 1950, indicating human activity is the likely cause. "The past few decades have been unique in the past 200,000 years in terms of the changes we see in the biology and chemistry recorded in the cores,'' University of Colorado glaciologist Yarrow Axford said. "We see clear evidence for warming in one of the most remote places on Earth at a time when the Arctic should be cooling because of natural processes." Mr Axford is the chief author of the study...

To the Editor: The Naval Health Research Center serves as the Navy hub for the Department of Defense's Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS), in which it monitors influenza-like illness among recruit trainees of all military services, military dependents, and crew members of large Navy ships (population, >1000). The center works in collaboration with the Border Infectious Disease Surveillance Project of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which monitors populations located on the border between California and Mexico. The first two human cases of novel swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus (S-OIV), known as swine flu, in...

VIENNA (AFP) – They can make fabric resistant to stains, improve the taste of food and help drug research, but nanoparticles could also pose a danger to human health, experts warned Wednesday. Susanne Stark, of the Consumer Information Association, told a seminar in the Austrian city of Salzburg that companies should be forced to indicate on labels whether a product contains the tiny particles. "There are more questions than answers on the effects of nanoparticles" on human health, the chemist said. Cosmetic and food products should indicate whether their products contain nanoparticles by 2012, she said. Nanoparticles, measuring no more...

When we daydream about the future, we tend to focus on the fabulous belongings we're going to have. Jet packs, flying cars, weapons to kill aliens, cell phones that make today's sleek models look clunky -- you name it, we're going to have it. We don't tend to focus, however, on who we'll be in the future. Most of us probably picture ourselves exactly the same, though maybe thinner, as surely we'll all have robot personal trainers by then. While we see the world's technology evolving to meet our needs, we may not think about how we ourselves might be...

Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans. Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a "soliciting purr" to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a "cry", with a similar frequency to a human baby's. The team said cats have "tapped into" a human bias - producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.

If you've ever wondered who's in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It's your cat. Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings. This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore. "The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with...

A fossil discovery bears marks of butchering similar to those made when cutting up a deerOne of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert. The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

snip It's even conceivable, he said, that our genes eventually will change enough to create an entirely new human species, one no longer able to breed with our own species, Homo sapiens. "Someday in the far distant future, enough genetic changes might have occurred so that future populations could not interbreed with the current one,'' Sussman said in an e-mail message. snip It's also the topic of a new book, "The 10,000 Year Explosion,'' by anthropologists Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. "For most of the last century, the received wisdom in the...

Skippy surprises scientists by Carl Wieland 20 January 2009 Feeling jumpy? It may not be from what you think. Researchers at Australia’s government-backed Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics have mapped the genetic code of these marsupials, and were surprised at the amazing similarity to that of humans...

Los Angeles, CA – A new study in the journal Personal Relationships reveals that women prefer mates who are recognized by their peers for their skills, abilities, and achievements, while not preferring men who use coercive tactics to subordinate their rivals. Indeed, women found dominance strategies of the latter type to be attractive primarily when men used them in the context of male-male athletic competitions. Jeffrey K. Snyder, Lee A. Kirkpatrick, and H. Clark Barrett conducted three studies with college women at two U.S. universities. Participants evaluated hypothetical potential mates described in written vignettes. The studies were designed to examine...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's utilities, refineries and large factories must transform their operations to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new climate plan before state regulators. On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board was expected to adopt what would be the nation's most sweeping global warming plan, outlining for the first time how individuals and businesses would meet a landmark 2006 law that made the state a leader on global climate change. It would hold California's worst polluters accountable for the heat-trapping emissions they produce _ transforming how people travel, utilities generate power and businesses use electricity. At...

NASA and other spaceflight programs worldwide should focus on putting people on Mars, not the moon, an advocacy group for space exploration said in a new plan announced today. "The U.S. landed humans on the Moon nearly 40 years ago," said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society. "Returning to the moon has not sufficiently excited the public and will require resources that will be badly needed elsewhere in the space program."

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human". One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up. Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long...

Ore. Discovery Challenges Beliefs About First Humans Until recently, most scientists believed that the first humans came to the Americas 13,000 years ago. But new archaeological findings from a cave in Oregon are challenging that assumption. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports on the controversial discovery. LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour correspondent: What archaeologist Dennis Jenkins found in the Paisley Caves in south central Oregon may turn on its head the theory of how and when the first people came to North America. Many scientists believe humans first came to this continent 13,000 years ago across a land bridge from Asia...

Humans Wore Shoes 40,000 Years Ago, Fossil SuggestsScott Norris for National Geographic NewsJuly 1, 2008 Humans were wearing shoes at least 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. The evidence comes from a 40,000-year-old human fossil with delicate toe bones indicative of habitual shoe-wearing, experts say. A previous study of anatomical changes in toe bone structure had dated the use of shoes to about 30,000 years ago. Now the dainty-toed fossil from China suggests that at least some humans were sporting protective footwear 10,000 years further back, during a time when both modern humans and Neandertals...

As a canine, there’s something satisfying about watching this video. I have to say, these are folks that see the water bowl as half full instead of half empty. Maybe there’s hope for humanity after all. Let the games begin…Click more to watch the video....http://boknowsonline.com/2008/02/29/doody-olympians/