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A map of Japan showing the fateful site of Sakushukotoni-gawa on Hokkaido. Origins of the Ainu by Gary Crawford The ringing telephone broke the evening silence. It was the fall of 1983, and my research partner, Professor Masakazu Yoshizaki, was calling from Japan. "Gary, I have some news," Yoshi said. "We have a few grains of barley from a site on the Hokkaido University campus. I think you should come and look at them." The Japanese language is notorious for its ambiguity, so I wasn't quite sure of the full meaning of what I had just heard. But I didn't...

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BASQUE AND AINU INTRODUCTION The language of the Ainu bear-worshippers of Northern Japan has generally been considered a language-isolate, supposedly being unlike any other language on earth. A few researchers noticed a relationship with languages in south-east Asia, others saw similarity with the Ostiak and Uralic languages of northern Siberia. The Ainu look like Caucasian people, they have white skin, their hair is wavy and thick, their heads are mesocephalic (round) and a few have grey or blue eyes. However, their blood types are more like the Mongolian people, possibly through many millennia of intermixing. The Ainu...

"There's been a lot of arguing over the last ten years, but it's now more or less agreed that about 80 percent of Britons' genes come from hunter-gatherers who came in immediately after the Ice Age," Miles said... New evidence for the genetic ancestry of modern Britons comes from analysis of blood groups, oxygen traces in teeth, and DNA samples taken from skeletal remains... The most visible British genetic marker is red hair, he added. The writer Tacitus noted the Romans' surprise at how common it was when they arrived 2,000 years ago. "It's something that foreign observers have often...

I have been talking to my Mother, Thanks Blam, about getting a DNA test to deturmine heritige. AB Negitive is a rare blood type in Ireland, less than 1%. I have been wondering about the distribution of this Blood Type among people descended from those who emmigrated from Northern Ireland. My Mother is Black Irish, Not Protestant, Black Hair, Dark Brown Eyes, Olive Skin, not your normal Harp. My Nana said it was the milk man, not likely!

In a new study, scientists from the CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, and the French Blood Establishment (EFS) have examined the previously sequenced genomes of one Denisovan and three Neandertal females who lived 100,000 to 40,000 years ago, in order to identify their blood groups and consider what they may reveal about human’s evolutionary history. Of the 40-some known blood group systems, the team concentrated on the seven usually considered for blood transfusion purposes, the most common of which are the ABO (determining the A, B, AB, and O blood types) and Rh systems.The findings bolster previous hypotheses but also offer new...

What would it have been like to meet a Neandertal? Researchers have hypothesized answers for decades, seeking to put flesh on ancient bones. But fossils are silent on many traits, from hair and skin color to speech and personality. Personality will have to wait, but in a paper published online in Science this week (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1147417), an international team announces that it has extracted a pigmentation gene, mc1r, from the bones of two Neandertals. The researchers conclude that at least some Neandertals had pale skin and red hair, similar to some of the Homo sapiens who today inhabit their European homeland....

Scientists have discovered that a particular type of enzyme can cut away antigens in blood types A and B, to make them more like Type O -- considered the 'universal' blood type, because it's the only type that can be donated to anyone without the risk of provoking a life-threatening immune response. The team, from the University of British Columbia of Canada, worked with a family of enzymes called 98 glycoside hydrolase, extracted from a strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Over many generations, they were able to engineer a super high-powered enzyme strain that can very effectively snip away blood antigens...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a new protein that controls the presence of the Vel blood group antigen on our red blood cells. The discovery makes it possible to use simple DNA testing to find blood donors for patients who lack the Vel antigen and need a blood transfusion. Because there has not previously been any simple way to find these rare donors, there is a global shortage of Vel-negative blood. The largest known accumulation of this type of blood donor is found in the Swedish county of Västerbotten, which exports Vel-negative blood all over the world....

Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine Volume 60 Number 6, November/December 2007 by Heather Pringle Will a cemetery excavation establish a link between the Black Death and resistance to AIDS? Beneath Eindhoven's modern skin of brick and asphalt lie the bones of its medieval townspeople. Studying their DNA may reveal the origin of the genetic resistance to AIDS. (Courtesy Laurens Mulkens) From the start, Nico Arts sensed that the frail remains of a child buried in front of a medieval church altar had an important story to tell. Arts is the municipal archaeologist in Eindhoven, a prosperous industrial city in the southern...

Black Death mutant gene resists Aids, say scientists Jan 4 2005 By Alan Weston, Daily Post IT HAS been described as the 'world's greatest serial killer'. The Black Death was a catastrophe which wiped out nearly half the European population, with 20m people dying between 1348 and 1350. But new research being carried out by a team from Liverpool University has shown that the disease may have produced an unexpected side-effect - resistance to the deadly HIV/Aids virus. Professor Christopher Duncan and Dr Susan Scott have already caused shockwaves among historians with their claim that the Black Death was caused...

The gene known as MC1R suggests the Neanderthals had fair skin and even freckles like redheads. After analysing the fossil bones found in a cave in north-west Spain, the experts concluded they had human blood group "O" and were genetically more likely to be fair skinned, perhaps even with freckles, have red or ginger hair and could talk... The report, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, concludes that: "These results suggest the genetic change responsible for the O blood group in humans predates the human and Neanderthal divergence" but came "after humans separated from their common ancestor ... chimpanzees." ...One gene...

The blood analyzed recently from two weeping icons in Italy and found to possess extraordinary, unique characteristics is of the AB blood type -- the same type reported in the well-known bleeding Host miracle at Lanciano, Italy, and also detected on the famed Shroud of Turin.It was last week that word came from noted Italian author Renzo Allegri [left] that blood genetically analyzed from the weeping icons was tested by a prestigious university and allegedly found to be unique to earth -- unlike any genetic structure in the world blood bank. The odds against it being of the particular...

A set of proteins found in our intestines can recognize and kill bacteria that have human blood type molecules on their surfaces, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered. The results were published online Feb. 14 and are scheduled to appear in the journal Nature Medicine. Many immune cells have receptors that respond to molecules on the surfaces of bacteria, but these proteins are different because they recognize structures found on our own cells, says senior author Richard D. Cummings, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry. "It's like having a platoon in an army whose...

I have been interested in human migrations for many years. One of the markers of a population is the distribution of a blood type among a given population. I got interested in this because the blood type distribution in the UK is nearly 50/50 A/O, a small sample has other blood types. My dear old Ma is Black Irish and is A/B, not a common blood type in the part of Ireland where her family originated. Click on the link for distributions.