All posts tagged: DNA

Eating potatoes reshaped the DNA of Indigenous Andeans

Eating potatoes reshaped the DNA of Indigenous Andeans

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletterđź’ˇ Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Now a dietary staple around the world, the nutritious potato was first domesticated by the Indigenous peoples of the Andes around 10,000 years ago. It turns out that spuds played such a central role in their diets that their bodies adapted to process the versatile tuber more efficiently. Today, their ancestors have the highest number of genes linked to starch digestion in the world.   Starchy superpower A study published in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed levels of the AMY1 gene in 3,723 individuals from 85 global populations in genomic databases. AMY1 produces salivary amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch. Essentially, more AMY1 means more salivary amylase, which means more effective starch digestion.  The team found that Indigenous Andeans have two to four …

Can DNA from cave paintings tell us who the artists were?

Can DNA from cave paintings tell us who the artists were?

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Perhaps the most evocative windows into the minds of our ancient ancestors are the images they painted on the walls of caves – renderings known simply as rock art or cave paintings. Rock art, which is found across the world, offers snapshots of human history, preserving representations of cultural traditions, symbolic communication and social identity. Common subjects include animals, hunting scenes and hand stencils – thought to have been made by blowing pigment over the artist’s hand. Scientists have wrestled with basic questions about the origins of rock art such as: what was used to produce it, when was it made, and who made it? Now, a recent study of cave art from Spain and Portugal has shown that ancient human DNA can be recovered directly from the cave walls. We may therefore be edging closer to answering “who made it?” Using this technique to link a specific painting to an ancient artist may be a step too far. But there are still important things it can tell us about the past. Previously, researchers had …

Friedrich Miescher, the man who discovered DNA

Friedrich Miescher, the man who discovered DNA

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Whether through TV crime dramas or cinema blockbusters about dinosaur theme parks, DNA is a staple of modern popular culture – its double-helix structure one of science’s most iconic visualisations. Yet remarkably, the young Swiss scientist who discovered DNA in the first place is largely forgotten. Born in Basel in 1844, Friedrich Miescher only began his career as a researcher after developing a hearing impairment that forced him to shelve plans to be a doctor like his father. Working in the medieval castle that overlooks the old German town of TĂĽbingen, Miescher’s aim was a grand one – to uncover the chemical nature of life itself. But his working environment was rather different to today’s molecular biology laboratories. The University of TĂĽbingen’s conversion of the castle kitchens into laboratories appears to have involved little more than swapping pots and pans for beakers and alembics used for distillation. Working in what he likened to the laboratory of a medieval alchemist, the first stage of Miescher’s research was the unsavoury task of scraping pus from discarded surgical …

Rembrandt’s DNA | Ruth Bernard Yeazell

Rembrandt’s DNA | Ruth Bernard Yeazell

Published by Jenni Sidey

“The art of Rembrandt and of the Dutch is, quite simply, ART FOR MAN.” With this ringing endorsement, the French journalist and critic ThĂ©ophile ThorĂ© closed volume one of his MusĂ©es de la Hollande (1858–1860). Having been exiled for his political activity a decade earlier, ThorĂ© was writing under the pseudonym W. Burger, and what this self-proclaimed “citizen” or BĂĽrger primarily meant by an “art for man” was an art produced for ordinary people rather than the popes and kings who had patronized the work of the Italians. But as Francis Haskell long ago noted, ThorĂ© was also particularly invested in an art that appeared to speak to the human condition.1 Though he could write warmly about landscapes and still lifes—as in his enthusiastic tributes to Vermeer’s View of Delft and The Little Street—his idea of Dutch art was first and foremost the one he attributed to his beloved Rembrandt: “The essence of his work is the representation of human subjects.” Something akin to Thoré’s spirit continues to animate the Leiden Collection, whose Franco-American founder, …

DNA from wolf pup’s last meal reveals new facts about woolly rhino’s extinction

DNA from wolf pup’s last meal reveals new facts about woolly rhino’s extinction

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The woolly rhino, Coelodonta antiquitatis, would have been an impressive sight to the ancient people who painted images of them on cave walls and carved figurines of them out of bone, antler, ivory and wood. The sadly now extinct rhino lived on the steppes and tundra of Europe and Asia, living alongside people for thousands of years. And a new study of woolly rhino DNA, extracted from the stomach of a wolf challenges a long held belief about species at risk of extinction. The species, which evolved in the middle of the Pleistocene era, approximately half a million years ago, weighed up to three tonnes. It was similar in size to the two largest rhino species alive today, the white rhino of southern and eastern Africa and the one-horned rhino of India. The woolly rhino was well adapted to live in ice age conditions. It had a thick layer of fat below the skin, a warm, woolly fleece and small ears and tail to minimise heat loss. It also had a shoulder hump to store …

14,000-year-old woolly rhinoceros DNA extracted from wolf’s stomach

14,000-year-old woolly rhinoceros DNA extracted from wolf’s stomach

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletterđź’ˇ Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Towards the end of the last ice age, an ancient wolf feasted on a young woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis). When the wolf died, it ended up buried in Siberian permafrost for about 14,000 years until it was uncovered by paleontologists in 2015. Luckily for scientists, some woolly rhinoceros tissue remained inside of the wolf’s stomach. Now, these genetic detectives analyzed the woolly rhino’s genome and found that the species likely went extinct due to rapid population collapse and not a slow decline as Earth’s climate warmed. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution. “Sequencing the entire genome of an Ice Age animal found in the stomach of another animal has never been done before,” Camilo ChacĂłn-Duque, a study co-author and paleogenomicist at Stockholm University in Sweden, said in a statement. “Recovering genomes from individuals that lived right before extinction is challenging, but it can provide important clues on what caused …

Science sleuths think they found Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA

Science sleuths think they found Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletterđź’ˇ Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Scientists are  one step closer to pinpointing fragments of Leonardo da Vinci’s elusive DNA.  A team of researchers from the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project analyzed samples swabbed from a red chalk drawing possibly attributed to the famed polymath, as well as letters written by one of his known cousins. Buried within that jumble of genetic material were human Y-chromosome sequences that belong to the same genetic grouping, sharing a common ancestry in Tuscany, the region where da Vinci was born. Specifically, they belong to the broad E1b1b lineage on the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son. The findings, presented this week in a preprint paper on the BioRxiv server, suggest that the DNA on the painting may belong to the storied Italian Renaissance man. If so, it would mark the first time scientists have identified his DNA.  Though the researchers caution that they can’t link the DNA to da Vinci with absolute certainty, the investigative process they …

Scientists Extract DNA from Drawing That Could Connect to Leonardo da Vinci

Scientists Extract DNA from Drawing That Could Connect to Leonardo da Vinci

Published by José Betancourt

Scientists extracted DNA from a possible Leonardo da Vinci drawing that may provide genetic links to one of the most storied humans to walk the Earth. In a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper posted Tuesday in a preprint database, researchers from the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project (LDVP) suggested that there may be connections between a chalk sketch titled Holy Child and materials thought to contain traces of members of the artist’s extended family. As reported in Science, “The preprint concludes that Y chromosome sequences from the artwork and from a letter penned by a cousin of Leonardo both belong to a genetic grouping of people who share a common ancestor in Tuscany, where Leonardo was born.” Source link