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For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. STATESBORO, Ga. - Like a tiny gilded menagerie, 3,000 gold-covered ticks stand upright in active positions on dime-sized platforms. Nearby is one of the most complete repositories of written knowledge on the tick, dating back to Homer, 800 B.C. Hundreds of thousands more of the bloodsucking creatures are tucked away in government-issue metal filing cabinets. The Smithsonian's little-known U.S. National Tick Collection is stored in a former home-economics demonstration house at Georgia Southern University. The collection's curators, the world's foremost authorities of tick identification, are in charge of more than 1...

By Jasper Copping Last Updated: 1:29am BST 16/09/2007 He was a young man, like so many others, who fell on the battlefield at Passchendaele. Aged just 29, Private Jack Hunter died in the arms of his younger brother, Jim, who buried him there, on the front line, in a shallow grave. Jack Hunter, who died at Passchendaele, with his brother Jim Jack Hunter, who died in the first world war, with his brother Jim Once the guns had fallen silent, Jim returned to look for his brother's body, but the ground had been chewed up by artillery and he could...

Research led by the University of Leeds has discovered genetic evidence that overturns existing theories about human migration into Island Southeast Asia (covering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo) - taking the timeline back by nearly 10,000 years. Prevailing theory suggests that the present-day populations of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) originate largely from a Neolithic expansion from Taiwan driven by rice agriculture about 4,000 years ago - the so-called "Out of Taiwan" model. However an international research team, led by the UK’s first Professor of Archaeogenetics, Martin Richards, has shown that a substantial fraction of their mitochondrial DNA lineages (inherited...

MtDNA exists separately from the rest of our DNA, inside the thousands of mitochondria within each cell, rather than the cell nucleus. It is so widely accepted as being from the mother's side it is sometimes known as the Eve Gene, the idea being that it can be traced back to some primeval mother of all living humans. Testing of mtDNA is used to identify maternal ancestry. However, all that will have to change after Dr Shiyu Luo of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. After testing of...

A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. Beer required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture, about 9,000 years ago. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer and vice versa. These two were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of...

The newly-discovered region, named the endorestiform nucleus, is located within the inferior cerebellar peduncle, an area that integrates sensory and motor information to refine our posture, balance and fine motor movements. Professor Paxinos suspected its existence three decades ago but has only now been able to see it due to better staining and imaging techniques.“The endorestiform nucleus is intriguing because it seems to be absent in the rhesus monkey and other animals that we have studied,” Professor Paxinos said.“This region could be what makes humans unique besides our larger brain size.”“I can only guess as to its function, but given...

Scientists recently detected two previously unknown species of microbes in a Canadian dirt sample, and the specimens were so unusual that the researchers had to reorganize the tree of life to make room for them. The microbes, also known as protists, belong to a group with the tongue-twisting name hemimastigotes, and the first-ever genetic analysis of these peculiar microorganisms revealed that they were even stranger than anyone suspected. Hemimastigotes, first observed in the 1800s, were previously classified as a phylum within a much larger group known as a super-kingdom, though it was unclear where exactly they belonged. But new DNA...

A GENETICALLY modified virus that kills cancer cells and destroys their hiding places has been developed by British scientists. It targets both cancer cells and healthy cells that are tricked into protecting the cancer from the immune system. Fibroblasts, the most common type of cell in connective tissues, are vital in the body's healing process, but they can get hijacked by cancer-associated fibroblasts or CAFs. These then help tumours grow, spread and evade therapy. The new treatment, a form of immunotherapy developed by Oxford University scientists, attacks carcinomas - the most ­common type of cancer. Currently, any therapy that kills...

OAKFIELD, N.Y. (AP) — Cows that can withstand hotter temperatures. Cows born without pesky horns. Pigs that never reach puberty. A company wants to alter farm animals by adding and subtracting genetic traits in a lab. It sounds like science fiction, but Recombinetics sees opportunity for its technology in the livestock industry. But first, it needs to convince regulators that gene-edited animals are no different than conventionally bred ones. To make the technology appealing and to ease any fears that it may be creating Franken-animals, Recombinetics isn't starting with productivity. Instead, it's introducing gene-edited traits as a way to ease...

A few years ago, a team of researchers in Poland came across a pair of Neanderthal bones that held a grisly secret: Their owner had been eaten by a giant bird. The two finger bones belonged to a Neanderthal child who had died roughly 115,000 years before, making those bones the oldest known human remains from Poland, according to Science In Poland. Once the bones were analyzed, the scientists concluded that the hand bones were porous because they had passed through the digestive system of a large bird. It is unclear if the bird killed the child and then ate...

SACRAMENTO — The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data. But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders. Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo’s and traced their DNA...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sought Sunday to bolster her shaky claims of Cherokee ancestry with the story of how her racist grandparents drove her parents to elope. But Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes says that account has its own credibility issues. Ms. Barnes, who said her research into Ms. Warren's family found "no evidence" of Native American ancestry, has challenged key elements of the senator's tale of how her parents, Pauline Reed and Donald Herring, defied his parents by running off to marry. [Snip] After Ms. Warren said in the Globe that her mother told her "nobody came to her wedding at...

I happen to be a member of one of the genealogical sites. Currently my DNA profile is 78% Western European and a typical native Western European is 48%. Which means 30% more of MY DNA came from the region than that of a native. Thank God I am not in Europe welcoming the Muslim hordes.

For generations, cross-referencing tombstones at the cemetery and vital records was required to unlock your lineage. But now, you can easily uncover some of the mystery of your family tree with DNA. Consumers like Larry Guernsey are giving the service as gifts. "I thought it would be a good Christmas present," Guernsey said. The $99 DNA test uses a saliva sample to trace family history. Here's how one company that provides the service, Ancestry, says it works: "A simple test can reveal an estimate of your ethnic mix… like if you're Irish or Scandinavian, or both." For Guernsey his curiosity...

FamilyTreeNow.com aggregates information obtained from public records such as marriage licenses, divorce filings, birth and death records and property tax records....accuracy is not guaranteed. The site also outlines legal restrictions against using the information for harassment, fraud, or illegal purposes. Some say it's no big deal, since many of us freely disclose personal, private information on a regular basis. We're the ones who put it out there. Others see how it could help find relatives with whom you've lost touch over the years. If you're bothered by the concept, you can opt out and have your name removed. In my...

The weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are also the time for high-school and college graduations, which often involve visits from grandparents. That makes this a time for generations to get together so they don’t make the mistake I made. Here’s my error: From the time I turned an arrogant 13, my father and I didn’t talk much. Looking back now, it seems unbelievable that when I flew from Texas to Massachusetts in 1984 to visit my parents for a week as he was dying of cancer, we didn’t talk for more than minutes about anything important, and I...

Camper went into the mountains in 1968, body found in 1975, remains identified in 2015 By Patrick J. Sullivan of the Leader Jan 29, 2016 0 Camper went missing in Olympic Mountains in 1968 A forensic artist in 2000 made a sketch from the skull found in the Olympic Mountains in 1975. In 2015, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office’s Cold Case Squad confirmed that the remains belonged to a camper who went missing in 1968. Images courtesy Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office cold case squad has resolved a 47-year-old mystery of a Tacoma man who went missing...

Growing up, my dad always told me we (the kids) were Scots-Irish and Slovak (Eastern European). My older brother did some research and can't find anyone from Scotland or Ireland. Mostly from Wales and England. Well, he got his test results back (mine are in the works) and it turns out he's 32% Scots-Irish. My thinking is I have a grandma somewhere in the past who died with a secret that is only now becoming clear. My question is, how many generations back would one have to go to be 32% (of any background) today? I'm thinking no more than...

American Indians Wary of DNA Tests BY TIM SULLIVAN THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Ever since the arrival of white colonists, American Indians have been tapped for their resources -- most recently their genes. And with an eye toward past abuses, some of them are growing wary of geneticists and anthropologists taking their blood, hair or ancestors' bones for research purposes. In Utah, tribes don't have as much experience with these exchanges as in other parts of the Americas, but officials with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes and the Northwest Band of the Shoshone feel they should be prepared. On...