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"One of the individuals - a little boy actually - ...had three copies of Chromosome 21. So, he would have had Down syndrome. And, yeah, that was unexpected and quite a moving little glimpse into the world of somebody with a disability in the very, very deep past," Cassidy said. The research team puts the discovery at between 4,000 and 6,000 years old, making it the oldest known case of Down's Syndrome in the world... "What we do, basically, is we powderise that [the petrous temporal bone in the inner ear] and we put the powder in solution and try...

More than 146,000 years ago, Neanderthals hunted birds and other game during short stays at a Spanish cave called Cova Negra. Anthropologists studying the bones they left behind came across one that stood out: a part of the skull that contains the inner ear bones just a few centimeters long, from a child who lived to about age 6.The bone displays a handful of tiny anomalies most commonly found in people with Down syndrome today. The child likely had this condition and had hearing loss, scientists report today in Science Advances—the oldest known example of the condition. If confirmed, the...

A new study led by Belgian and Spanish researchers published in Scientific Reports adds evidence about the potential benefits of green tea extracts in Down syndrome. The researchers observed that the intake of green tea extracts can reduce facial dysmorphology in children with Down syndrome when taken during the first three years of life. Additional experimental research in mice confirmed the positive effects at low doses. However, they also found that high doses of the extract can disrupt facial and bone development. More research is needed to fully understand the effects of green tea extracts and therefore they should always...