Loulan Beauty upsets Chinese View of Colonization of Xinjiang

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 week 4 days (www.nytimes.com)

In Xinjiang, a part of China that mainstream culture considers to be entirely Chinese, the discovery of over two hundred extremely well-preserved and marketly not Han Chinese mummies have called that assertion into question. Xinjiang borders Kazakh and Mongolia.

My take? Well DUH. Human beings migrate like crazy. Borders change. My ancestors moved from God-knows-where to Ireland, displacing the people who lived there earlier. Today we call their other descendants "Irish" and wouldn't think of calling them anything else

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: China Chinese populations migrations mummies demographics DNA ethnicity science and culture

Genetics: Phoenicians leave their mark on the world ...again

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 month 1 day (www.nytimes.com)

If you look for "Phoenicia" on a map, you won't find it. The people, culture and language were dead when the Romans were still Roming all over the place. (As a matter of fact, these two events were directly related; darn legionnaires!) Still, you're heard of the Phoenicians before. Maybe you don't remember precisely when, but it's something that reminds you of stone and Greece and a sea that is for some reason wine-dark.

It could be because Phoenicia had a huge trading empire and a huge influence on the ancient Mediterranean

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National parks spark population growth! ...human populations

Darkfrog submitted, created time 4 months 3 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Despite what critics, proponents, common sense and a proportionate number of the planets 8-balls would have told us, national parks in developing countries are GOOD for people but BAD for animals.

It doesn't make sense on the surface. Opponents of national parks in poor areas have argued that people shouldn't be barred access to traditional hunting grounds, but demographic studies show that human population growth near park borders increases faster than in other places--it implies that people are moving there for the jobs and aid that go hand-in-hand with park placement

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: parks endangered species economics demographics human populations migrations ecology politics

Deep trouble--fish seeking colder waters may have nowhere to go

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

An increasing number of species are migrating in response to global warming; some alpine organisms are climbing to higher altitudes. Other animals are moving towards the poles.

A new study suggests that as sea temperatures rise, many fish may be electing to move into deeper, cooler waters, rather than moving to higher latitudes as many theorists had previously predicted. This presents a problem: the deeper the fish go, the less light and food they find.

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: global climate change global warming climate change marine biology fish migrations endangered species Global warming

Climate change claims its first victim: the entire nation of Kiribati

Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Picture Holland with no dams or dykes. The ocean rushes in, right? It will be more of a slow flooding for the island republic of Kiribati. According to experts, even if all greenhouse gas emissions were ceased immediately, the inertia of climate change would keep oceans rising for perhaps a hundred years. Of all Kiribati's thirty-two islands and atolls, none are more than two meters above sea level.

It will take a while, but sooner or later, those 97,000 people will have to find someplace else to live

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: climate change global climate change greenhouse-gas emissions Kiribati migrations politics global warming greenhouse effect rising oceans

Tracing Humanity's Path

jerry submitted, created time 6 months 1 week (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Most researchers agree that modern humans got their start in Africa and then spread throughout the world beginning about 50,000 years ago. But scientists are still working out the details of how the planet was peopled, such as who went where, and when. A new study, employing sophisticated modeling techniques, confirms the prevailing Out of Africa model but also comes up with some surprises, including evidence that the Americas' first human inhabitants arrived in multiple waves.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: migration migrations out-of-Africa out-of-Africa hypothesis history prehistory science and culture human evolutionary biology anthropology

Collective Motion and Cannibalism in Locust Migratory Bands

sea-maid submitted, created time 6 months 1 week (www.current-biology.com)

We know that plagues of mass migrating insects such as locusts are estimated to affect the livelihood of one in ten people on the planet. Because of above reason, identification of generalities in the mechanisms underlying these mass movements will enhance our understanding of animal migration and collective behavior while potentially contributing to pest-management efforts.

3 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: food pest management entymology collective behavior migrations locusts insects agriculture Locust Migratory Bands

Need Directions? Ask a Moth

Vincent submitted, created time 7 months 4 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Finding your way home in the dark can be tricky. But migrating moths manage to cover huge distances at night by riding high-speed gusts of wind toward their breeding site. And they don't just catch some air and hope for the best, a new study suggests: Even when the wind strays off-course, the nocturnal commuters use an internal compass to stay on track.

2 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: migrations lepidoptery moths entymology

Fossil faces pinpoint earliest North Americans

Fossilized jaw shows that hominids lived in Europe earlier than we'd thought

Darkfrog submitted, created time 8 months 4 days (www.nature.com)

The article names the single-find specie "Homo antecessor" and hypothesizes descent from Homo erectus, saying that some Homo e left Africa for Asia, then quickly doubled back to Spain.

This changes the system of ideas surrounding genus Homo's entrance into Europe. Previous fossils gave a date of as early as 800,000 years ago, but this mandible dates to 1.2 million.

12 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: human evolutionary biology migrations homo primates hominids fossils paleontology

Peruvian mummies show that New World lice predated Columbus, give implications for typhus

Darkfrog submitted, created time 9 months 3 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

While it's generally known that European explorers imported smallpox, fevers and even the bacteria for tooth decay to the previously unafflicted New World, but they have just been absolved of another annoyance: head lice. Arid conditions in Peru one thousand years ago preserved a number of human corpses and the lice in their long hair. It is now thought that lice came to the Americas along with humans during the earliest migrations.

The new idea raised in this article is that that typhus, a disease that can be spread by lice, may have originated in the New World

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: New World tooth decay lice parasites migrations Columbian Exchange history science and history American Indians typhus trench fever

TB-scarred Homo erectus skull found in Turkey

Darkfrog submitted, created time 11 months 1 week (www3.interscience.wiley.com)

The article discusses the way in which TB affected migrating populations. According to the article, examination of this skull supports the idea that as dark-skinned hominids moved into areas where the sun was less intense, they found themselves deficient in vitamin D, which affected their bones and immune systems.

It also got a writeup in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18skul.html?ref=science

5 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: human evolutionary biology tuberculosis populations migrations adaptive radiation disease bones TB immune system

The long walk of the salamanders