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Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Nature
New piece in the jigsaw puzzle of human origins
In an article in today's Nature, Uppsala researcher Martin Brazeau describes the skull and jaws of a fish that lived about 410 million years ago. The study may give important clues to the origin of jawed vertebrates, and thus ultimately our own evolution.
Contact: Martin Brazeau
martin.brazeau@ebc.uu.se
018-471-2635
Uppsala University
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
PLoS Genetics
Humans are reason for why domestic animals have strange and varied coat colours
Study proves humans have actively changed the coats of domestic animals by cherry-picking rare genetic mutations, causing variations such as different colors, bands and spots, according to a new study.
European Commission, European Molecular Biology Organization, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
Contact: Dr. Greger Larson
greger.larson@durham.ac.uk
44-191-334-1574
Durham University
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Archaeological Institute of America
University of Leicester archaeologist uncovers evidence of ancient chemical warfare
A researcher from the University of Leicester has identified what looks to be the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare -- from Roman times.
Contact: Dr. Simon James
stj3@le.ac.uk
01-162-522-535
University of Leicester
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Current Biology
First Americans arrived as 2 separate migrations, according to new genetic evidence
The first people to arrive in America traveled as at least two separate groups to arrive in their new home at about the same time, according to new genetic evidence published online on Jan. 8 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
Contact: Cathleen Genova
cgenova@cell.com
617-397-2802
Cell Press
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
Renaissance Quarterly
Renaissance capitalist: New research answers mystery about illegitimate daughter of pope
In popular legend, Lucrezia Borgia stands falsely accused of poisoning her second husband. Victor Hugo portrayed her in thinly veiled fiction as a tragic femme fatale. Buffalo Bill named his gun after her.
But groundbreaking new research reveals that the infamous duchess was less interested in political intrigue than in running a business.
Forced by an economic downturn to become an entrepreneur, the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI would control between 30,000 and 50,000 acres within six years.
National Endowment for the Humanities, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fulbright Program, Graham Foundation
Contact: Suzanne Wu
suzanne.wu@usc.edu
213-740-0252
University of Southern California
Public Release: 5-Jan-2009
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Field Museum discovery helps solve mystery of South American trophy heads
A recent study using specimens from Chicago's Field Museum establishes that Nazca trophy heads came from people who lived in the same place and were part of the same culture as those who collected them.
Contact: Nancy O'Shea
noshea@fieldmuseum.org
312-665-7103
Field Museum
Public Release: 1-Jan-2009
Science
6 North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil
Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Jim Barlow
jebarlow@uoregon.edu
541-343-2795
University of Oregon
Public Release: 22-Dec-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Life on Earth got bigger in 2-million-fold leaps, says Stanford researcher
Earth's creatures come in all sizes, yet they (and we) all sprang from the same single-celled organisms that first populated the planet. So how on Earth did life go from bacteria to the blue whale? "It happened primarily in two great leaps, and each time, the maximum size of life jumped up by a factor of about a million," said Jonathan Payne, assistant professor of geological and environmental science at Stanford.
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
Contact: Louis Bergeron
louisb3@stanford.edu
650-725-1944
Stanford University
Public Release: 19-Dec-2008
Archaeological discovery: Earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors
A research team led by Professor Michael Chazan, director of the University of Toronto's Archaeology Center, has discovered the earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.
Contact: Michael Chazan
mchazan@me.com
University of Toronto
Public Release: 18-Dec-2008
Acta Archaeologica
Passage graves from an astronomical perspective
Passage graves are mysterious barrows from the Stone Age. New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen indicates that the Stone Age graves' orientation in the landscape could have an astronomical explanation. The Danish passage graves are most likely oriented according to the path of the full moon, perhaps even according to the full moon immediately before a lunar eclipse. The results are published in the scientific journal Acta Archaeologica.
Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
453-532-5320
University of Copenhagen
Public Release: 18-Dec-2008
2008 AGU Fall Meeting
New World post-pandemic reforestation helped start Little Ice Age, say Stanford scientists
The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement.
In recent years, there has been growing evidence to suggest that the effect of the pandemics in the Americas wasn't confined to killing indigenous peoples. Global climate appears to have been altered as well.
Stanford University, Bellarmine College Preparatory
Contact: Louis Bergeron
louisb3@stanford.edu
650-725-1944
Stanford University
Public Release: 11-Dec-2008
Iron Age 'sacrifice' is Britain's oldest surviving brain
The oldest surviving human brain in Britain, dating back at least 2000 years to the Iron Age, has been has been unearthed during excavations on the site of the University of York's campus expansion at Heslington East.
Contact: David Garner
dcg501@york.ac.uk
44-019-044-32153
University of York
Public Release: 8-Dec-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition
Late Neandertals and modern human contact in southeastern Iberia
It is widely accepted that early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process. But how long did they survive? New research, is shedding light on what were probably the last Neandertals.
Contact: Erik Trinkaus
trinkaus@artsci.wustl.edu
314-935-5207
Washington University in St. Louis
Public Release: 8-Dec-2008
Palaeontology
Isopora or isn't it?
Scientists have made an unexpected discovery that links corals of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Drs. Ann Budd and Donald McNeill named a new species of fossil coral found on the Island of Curaçao -- some 6 million years old -- after UM Rosenstiel School's Dr. Robert N. Ginsburg. The new species, originally thought to be an elkhorn coral was recently positively identified as a Pacific coral species with the help of Dr. Carden C. Wallace of the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Australia.
Contact: Barbra Gonzalez
barbgo@rsmas.miami.edu
305-421-4704
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
Public Release: 5-Dec-2008
Quaternary Research
Cave's climate clues show ancient empires declined during dry spell
The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.
Comer Science and Education Foundation, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, Israel Science Foundation, Sigma Xi, UW-Madison Department of Geology and Geophysics
Contact: Ian Orland
orland@geology.wisc.edu
608-262-8960
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Public Release: 4-Dec-2008
American Journal of Human Genetics
Past religious diversity and intolerance have profound impact on genetics of Iberian people
New research suggests that relatively recent events had a substantial impact on patterns of genetic diversity in the southwest region of Europe. The study, published by Cell Press on Dec. 4 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, shows that geographical patterns of ancestry appear to have been influenced by religious conversions of both Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula.
Contact: Cathleen Genova
cgenova@cell.com
617-397-2802
Cell Press
Public Release: 1-Dec-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Evidence from dirty teeth: Ancient Peruvians ate well
Starch grains preserved on human teeth reveal that ancient Peruvians ate a variety of cultivated crops including squash, beans, peanuts and pacay. Starch grain analysis of human dental remains should prove to be a powerful means to directly study ancient diets.
Contact: Beth King
kingb@si.edu
703-487-3770 x8216
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Public Release: 1-Dec-2008
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Oetzi's last supper
From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, researchers have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of the events leading up to his death. By identifying six different mosses in his alimentary tract, they suggest that the Iceman may have travelled, injured himself and dressed his wounds. Their findings are published in the December issue of Springer's journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.
Royal Society of London, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
Contact: Joan Robinson
joan.robinson@springer.com
49-622-148-78130
Springer
Public Release: 25-Nov-2008
Boreas
Climate change wiped out cave bears 13 millennia earlier than thought
Enormous cave bears, Ursus spelaeus, that once inhabited a large swathe of Europe, from Spain to the Urals, died out 27,800 years ago, around 13 millennia earlier than was previously believed, scientists have reported. The new date coincides with a period of significant climate change, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, when a marked cooling in temperature resulted in the reduction or loss of vegetation forming the main component of the cave bears' diet.
Contact: Jennifer Beal
wbnewseurope@wiley.com
44-012-437-70633
Wiley-Blackwell
Public Release: 25-Nov-2008
Journal of Chemical Physics
New discovery may enhance MRI scans, lead to portable MRI machines
Researchers in Ohio and France have solved a longstanding scientific mystery involving magnetic resonance -- the physical phenomenon that allows MRI instruments in modern hospitals to image tissues deep within the human body. Their discovery, a new mathematical algorithm, should lead to new MRI techniques with more informative and sharper images.
National Science Foundation, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Le Studium
Contact: Jason Bardi
jbardi@aip.org
301-209-3091
American Institute of Physics
Public Release: 24-Nov-2008
Royal Society
Getting warmer? Prehistoric climate can help forecast future changes
New data on a prehistoric warm period allow for more accurate predictions of future climate and improved understanding of today's warming. Past warm periods provide real data on climate change and are natural laboratories for understanding the global climate system. Scientists examined fossils from 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago, known as the mid-Pliocene warm period. Research was conducted by the Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping group, led by the US Geological Survey.
Contact: Jessica Robertson
jrobertson@usgs.gov
703-648-6624
United States Geological Survey
Public Release: 24-Nov-2008
Historical Archeology
Archeology of homelessness
Larry J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., an Indiana University -- Purdue University Indianapolis professor of anthropology and museum studies at the School of Liberal Arts, and Jessica Welch, an IUPUI student and a formerly homeless woman, have completed a unique study of the material culture of the homeless. The researchers discovered that the problem of homelessness is broader and much more complex than previously thought.
Contact: Cindy Fox Aisen
caisen@iupui.edu
317-274-7722
Indiana University
Public Release: 24-Nov-2008
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Bacterial biofilms as fossil makers
Bacterial decay was once viewed as fossilization's mortal enemy, but new research suggests bacterial biofilms may have actually helped preserve the fossil record's most vulnerable stuff -- animal embryos and soft tissues.
Indiana University
Contact: David Bricker
brickerd@indiana.edu
812-856-9035
Indiana University
Public Release: 20-Nov-2008
Heredity
Two from one: Pitt research maps out evolution of genders from hermaphroditic ancestors
Research from the University of Pittsburgh published in the Nov. 20 edition of Heredity could finally provide evidence of the first stages of the evolution of separate sexes, a theory that holds that males and females developed from hermaphroditic ancestors. These early stages are not completely understood because the majority of animal species developed into the arguably less titillating separate-sex state too long ago for scientists to observe the transition.
Contact: Morgan Kelly
mekelly@pitt.edu
412-624-4356
University of Pittsburgh
Public Release: 20-Nov-2008
Deep-sea protists may explain trace fossil evidence attributed to ancient animals
A new discovery challenges one of the strongest arguments in favor of the idea that animals with bilateral symmetry -- those that, like us, have two halves that are roughly mirror images of each other -- existed before their obvious appearance in the fossil record during the early Cambrian, some 542 million years ago. Researchers report the first evidence that trace fossils interpreted by some as the tracks of ancient bilaterians could have instead been made by giant deep-sea protists.
Contact: Cathleen Genova
cgenova@cell.com
617-397-2802
Cell Press
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