Read reviews of science articles, new research and news reports on ancestry testing, ancient DNA and popular genetics
Discussion is accelerating in the United States and European Union to regulate private genomic testing that provides consumers medical information, according to Science magazine and the European Journal of Human Genetics. No mention is made in the reams of white papers about ancestry testing, but some of the pitfalls and bureaucratic morasses in the thinking about true genetic/medical testing are fairly ominous, if not silly.
Like Egyptian Queen Hapshepsut, who wore the royal beard in portraits, Queen Elizabeth I was careful to refer to herself as a “prince,” not “princess,” and sign her name Elizabeth R. (the Rstanding for Rex, “king”).
Date of Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa
Increased from 60,000 to 130,000 Years
Science 26 November 2010:
Vol. 330 no. 6008 pp. 1174-1175
DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6008.1174-b
The royal mound cemetery at Taillten, modern Telltown in County Meath, houses the burials of numerous kings and nobles from early Ireland. These begin with Ollamh Fodhla, whose death occurred in 1277 B.C.E., and run to just before Conchobar Mac Ness, who died in A.D. 33 according to the Annals of Tighernach, written in Old Irish and Latin in the early Middle Ages. Pronounced “CON ah war,” Conchobar is the first of the name Connor or O’Connor in Irish annals. His mother was Queen Ness, and his nephew Cuchulain, the famous hero of the Ulster cycle of stories.
Neanderthal Brain Growth Shows A Head Start for Moderns
Jews and Muslims in Colonial America
After more than eight years in development, a book contract was awarded to Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman and Donald N. Yates for their collaborative study of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Muslims in the settlement of British North America. Titled Star, Crescent and Cross: Jews and Muslims in Colonial America, the work will be published next year by McFarland, a leading U.S. publisher of scholarly, reference and academic books.
Our New Computer Program Validates Melungeon Sample and Conclusions
Early experiments with our new Melungeon Match product show that members of the original research study score extremely high for a match to the population Melungeon (n=40) recently added to the database atDNA (Beta Version).
The Greatest Divide in Human Genealogy and History
You hear a lot of talk about the Neolithic Revolution–the gradual adoption and spread of agriculture, animal husbandry and town life by our prehistoric European ancestors–but the most important epoch in the course of civilization goes largely unnoticed in the history books. That was the abrupt shift from matriarchy and worship of the Great Goddess to the warrior-based governments and language stocks of the steppe-dwelling Indo-Aryan barbarians who invaded Old Europe beginning in the late fourth millennium BCE.
Jewelry from the Grotte du Renne “reindeer cave” at Arcy-sur-Cure in Central France has long been assigned to Neanderthals, helping rehabilitate them in the picture paleontologists paint of early mankind. But these artifacts have now been questioned thanks to a redating of the lowest levels of the cave, where Neanderthals were presumed active. According to Science Magazine vol. 330, no. 6003, p. 439) in October 2010,
Jewish I is described as “the most common of the three markers… its frequency highest in Poles, Russians, Germans, Hungarians, Romanians and Slavic peoples who intermarried with Ashkenazi Jews. It also appears in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan Jews (Sephardim).”
