Posted on 11/03/2010 8:28:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Back in 2004, when academics unearthed skeletons found at a house in the ancient Roman town that was covered in ashes in 79 AD, they thought it belonged to an extinct breed of horse... What happened really was that there seems to have been a mix-up in the lab, which led to horse DNA being combined with donkey DNA, creating an artificial hybrid that actually never existed.
Six years ago, the skeletons of equids having belonged to a rich Roman household in Pompeii were analyzed. There were found in the stables of a probably wealthy politician, and all five of them were very well preserved by the volcanic ash that covered Pompeii and Herculaneum, when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The team then analyzed the mitochondrial DNA sequences (mtDNA) of each of the horses, and found that one of them had a mysterious type of DNA, that was no longer found today, probably an unknown breed of horse, which had disappeared.
Susan Gurney examined the research and found... that the first 177 nucleotides matched existing patterns of donkey, and the next 193 nucleotides matched those of an existing breed of horse... "In addition, the horse DNA that appears to have been inadvertently mixed in with the donkey's genetic information is the same type as that found in another Herculaneum horse, which might be the source of the mistake."
This research could still have its importance, because apparently the DNA of this newly identified donkey finds its closest match with the DNA of domestic donkeys related to the Somali wild ass that lives in Italy today.
This might be evidence that the 'Somali' ass lineage dates back to at least Roman times, whereas in other European countries, asses are often descended from the Nubian lineage.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.softpedia.com ...
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>>What happened really was that there seems to have been a mix-up in the lab, which led to horse DNA being combined with donkey DNA, creating an artificial hybrid that actually never existed. <<
The result was, of course, the democrat party. It is the perfect combination of donkey brains and horses’ asses.
So, who at the lab is going to be the mule for this one?
LOL!
The real asses, of course, are the stupid scientists who did the original work.
Not to be confused with the American Wild Ass:
Somali better figure this out.
Equid be anybody.
:’D
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