#ancient-dna

#ancient-dna

At first glance, it looked like Wooller and his colleagues might have found evidence that mammoths lived in central Alaska just 2,000 years ago. But ancient DNA revealed that two "mammoth" bones actually belonged to a North Pacific right whale and a minke whale-which raised a whole new set of questions. The team's hunt for Alaska's last mammoth had turned into an epic case of mistaken identity, starring two whale species and a mid-century fossil hunter.

Researchers have discovered the naturally mummified and skeletal remains of 61 cheetahs, which were hidden deep inside caves in northern Saudi Arabia for hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years. The find indicates that these big cats roamed the Arabian Peninsula for millennia before they disappeared from the landscape between 49 and 188 years agoevidence that bolsters an effort to rewild the region with modern-day cheetahs, according to Ahmed Boug, general director of the National Center for Wildlife in Riyadh.

Collectively, the genetic variants in this population are outside the range of previously described human diversity. What's distinct? Estimates of the timing of when this ancient south African population branched off from any modern-day populations place the split at over 200,000 years ago, or roughly around the origin of modern humans themselves. But this wasn't some odd, isolated group; estimates of population size based on the frequency of genetic variation suggest it was substantial.

We found this new lineage, a new group of people we didn't know about before, that has persisted as the main ancestry component for at least the last 8,000 years up to the present day.

Scientists have long speculated what caused the downfall of the Neanderthals, but a new study suggests they never truly went extinct at all. Scientists in Italy and Switzerland claim the ancient group of archaic humans didn't experience a 'true extinction' because their DNA exists in people today. Over as little as 10,000 years, our species, Homo sapeins, mated and produced offspring with Neanderthals as part of a gradual 'genetic assimilation'.

And while the history of the combustion engines that eventually replaced horses is well understood, precisely how and when our ancestors transformed wild animals into docile and rideable domestic companions has been debated, pieced together from studies of ancient teeth and bones. But a new study of ancient DNA sheds light on how modern horses came to be, pinpointing key genetic changes that shaped their bodies and behavior, helping make the wild animals more docile and rideable.

Pathogens have been a constant threat to human health throughout our evolutionary history. Infectious diseases are estimated to have been responsible for more than half of all children deaths before age 15.