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The oldest ever recovered DNA samples have been collected from under more than a mile of Greenland ice, and their analysis suggests the island was much warmer during the last Ice Age than previously thought. The DNA is proof that sometime between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, much of Greenland was especially green and covered in a boreal forest that was home to alder, spruce and pine trees, as well as insects such as butterflies and beetles.

Landmark new research that involves analyzing millions of DNA barcodes has debunked much about what we know today about the evolution of species. In a massive genetic study, senior research associate at the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University Mark Stoeckle and University of Basel geneticist David Thaler discovered that virtually 90 percent of all animals on Earth appeared at right around the same time. More specifically, they found out that 9 out of 10 animal species on the planet came to being at the same time as humans did some 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. "This conclusion...

Tipper Gore was more enraged about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky than even Hillary Clinton, according to a new book. “Tipper Gore was furious at Bill Clinton, angrier than Hillary Clinton was,” author Kate Andersen Brower told The Post. Her new book, “First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents and the Pursuit of Power,” comes out Tuesday. With Lewinsky being the same age as the Gores’ eldest daughter, Karenna, Tipper “felt personally offended by the scandal,” said ex-Gore aide Jamal Simmons. The White House intern was 22 when the affair with Bill Clinton began. “In Gore’s case there’s no way...

Clinton came under fire early Monday after a testy exchange with an interviewer about whether or not he should have privately apologized to Lewinsky. During an evening event later that day, Clinton revisited the conversation and defended the public apology he gave in September 1998. "The hubub was I got hot under the collar because of the way the questions were asked," Clinton said Monday night, referencing his interview on NBC's Today Show earlier that day. "I think what was lost were the two points that I made, that are important to me: the suggestion was that I never apologized...

LONDON (Reuters) - A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist. The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks. Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine. “This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large...

Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin. Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment...

French researchers claim to have put an end to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler, after a study of his teeth proved he definitely died after taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head in Berlin in 1945. The researchers reached their conclusion after they were given rare access to fragments of Hitler’s teeth which have been held in Moscow since the end of World War II. "The teeth are authentic, there is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945," said professor Philippe Charlier. "We can stop all the conspiracy theories about Hitler. He...

For a purebred dog and, on occasion, even a first-generation hybrid, breed-inference services often just confirm what the dog owner already knows. Sometimes a pedigree is available, tracing back through multiple generations of purebred ancestors and providing essentially complete information about the pet’s ancestry. In other cases, an owner’s extensive experience leads to correct intuition that ears that floppy together with a nose that keen must indicate complete or near-complete beagle ancestry. By contrast, when applied to investigate the ancestry of a mutt, DNA-based inference often yields surprising conclusions.

SACRAMENTO - DNA is back in the spotlight, cracking cold cases. But questions are being raised after the state spent decades collecting the DNA of infants without parents realizing it. California has been collecting newborn blood samples since 1983. Many parents were shocked to hear their children’s blood is being stored in a state database, and possibly even sold to outside researchers. Pricking the toes newborns, to test their blood for certain disorders. The remaining blood becomes “property of the state,” and could be shared with outside researchers. “I feel like that’s something that should have been discussed with us,...

Nearly half of the Democratic National Committee's staff are now people of color and 51 percent are women, according to a new report to be published by the DNC Monday. The report was prepared as the party responds to criticism that it has taken minority voters for granted while overlooking them for jobs and contracts. The DNC became more diverse as it staffed back up after its post-2016 election lull, seeing a big jump in the number of Latinos (from 5 to 22) and smaller increases in the number of African-Americans (from 22 to 30), Asian-American/Pacific Islanders and LGBTQ people...

There's an extremely serious dump of emails that came from Wikileaks exposing Hillary Clinton for ordering top US Diplomats to steal the DNA and passwords from United Nations leadership. The stunning email comes from the account of Hillary Clinton that used the address “hdr22@clintonemail.com”.

In June 1995, Monica Lewinsky’s move to Washington, D.C., was unremarkable. She was a 21-year-old recent college grad with an unpaid internship in the office of President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, landed with the help of a family connection. But, as the nation later learned, things happened quickly from that point, as it was that year that she began a relationship with the President that would last about two years and lead to an epoch-shaping scandal. The relationship between Lewinsky and President Clinton came to light 20 years ago, and the fallout would dominate 1998’s news. And...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The genealogy website used to find the man accused of being California's Golden State Killer had no idea its database was tapped in pursuit of a suspect who eluded law enforcement for four decades, the site co-founder said Friday. Authorities never approached Florida-based GEDmatch about the case, and Curtis Rogers said law enforcement's use of the site raised privacy concerns that were echoed by civil liberties groups. The free genealogy website, which pools DNA profiles that people upload and share publicly to find relatives, said it has always informed users its database can be used for...

SACRAMENTO — The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data. But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders. Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo’s and traced their DNA...

The words, emblazoned on two signs that hang off U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai's campaign bus, appear next to two images: one of a stoic Ayyadurai looking into the camera, and another of a closeup of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing a Native American headdress. Ayyadurai, a 54-year-old scientist born in Bombay, India, told the Washington Times the city of Camridge, Mass., had ordered him to remove the signs because they were placed "without approvals and permits." He believes this was instead a case of the city trying to clamp down on his right to free speech. “This is a...

It's not just the double helix! For the first time, scientists have identified the existence of a new DNA structure never before seen in living cells. The discovery of what's described as a 'twisted knot' of DNA in living cells confirms our complex genetic code is crafted with more intricate symmetry than just the double helix structure everybody associates with DNA – and the forms these molecular variants take affect how our biology functions. "When most of us think of DNA, we think of the double helix," says antibody therapeutics researcher Daniel Christ from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research...

One of the things I fuss about a lot (especially at Buffer) are words—very simple words, in fact. Should it say “Hi” or “Hey?” Should it be “cheers” or “thanks?” How about “but” or “and?” There are many occasions when Joel and I sit over one line and change it multiple times, until we feel it really sits right. This is partly to improve our metrics for click rate and others. It is also to simply create the right emotion. The one key question we ask ourselves is: “How does this make you feel?” The question might sound very...

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen will meet former US President Bill Clinton in Copenhagen on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed. Clinton will be shown around Christiansborg, the seat of Denmark’s parliament, before one-to-one talks with Rasmussen, the PM’s office confirmed in a press statement. […] He is scheduled to give a keynote speech at a summit held by the Presidents Institute foundation in the Danish capital on Wednesday, with up to 3,000 European leaders expected to attend. …

Amid efforts to find alien life, scientists have not yet confirmed the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization. Findings of a new study suggest this has something do with the element phosphorus lacking in the cosmos. Life-Giving PhosphorusPhosphorus is the 11th most common element on Earth, and it is fundamental to all living things. Phosphorus is one of only six chemical elements on our planet that organisms depend on. "[Phosphorus] helps form the backbone of the long chains of nucleotides that create RNA and DNA; it is part of the phospholipids in cell membranes; and is a building block of the...

In 2016, NASA sequenced DNA in space for the first time, but alien life, we may soon discover, may be vastly different on other planets and moons, particularly as we expand our efforts to explore ocean worlds with our solar system and beyond. “Most strategies for life detection rely upon finding features known to be associated with Earth's life, such as particular classes of molecules,” the researchers wrote. DNA and RNA are the building blocks of life on Earth, but the molecules of life might differ substantially on another planet. A new paper by scientists at Georgetown University, published online...