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Not just metals, hierarchical societies and fortified settlements: a new food also influenced economic transformations in the Bronze Age around 3,500 years ago. This is evidenced by frequent archeological discoveries of remains of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.), a cereal with small, roundish grains. A major study by the Collaborative Research Center 1266 at Kiel University (CAU) was published yesterday (13 August) in the journal Scientific Reports. It shows how common millet got onto the menu in Bronze Age Europe. Intensive trade and communication networks facilitated the incredibly rapid spread of this new crop originating from the Far East. "Wheat,...

Some of the earliest solid evidence of poison use is traces of the highly toxic compound ricin on 24,000-year-old wooden applicators, found in South Africa's Border cave. However, archaeologists have long suspected this hunting technique is much older, and new evidence now suggests humans have been shooting poison arrows through the last 72,000 years. In a new study, archaeologist Marlize Lombard from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa examined the unique properties of known poison arrows, comparing them to those that don't rely on poison, by analysing 128 bone pointed arrows. Arrows that don't use poison need to deeply pierce the...

Rat DNA clues to sea migration This carving shows Pacific rats on the face of a Polynesian ancestor Scientists have used DNA from rats to trace migration patterns of the ancestors of today's Polynesians. People are thought to have arrived in Polynesia, comprising the Pacific islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, by boat some 3,000 years ago. Rat data suggests the journey was more complex than the popular "Express Train" theory, which proposes a rapid dispersal of people from South Asia. Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Judith Robins from the University of...

A lamb that was genetically modified with jellyfish genes for advanced research was sold to a slaughterhouse for meat in France, according to European news accounts. An investigation to find out how the genetically-altered animal ended up as meat is underway, according to Le Parisien, the French newspaper that broke the story. "Rubis, the lamb, was found on a plate. Who ate her? No one knows. All that's known is the meat left a French slaughterhouse in November 2014" according to Le Parisien. The story states Rubis came from a program started in 2009 called "Green Mutton" within the scientific...

The research, a collaboration between the University of Roehampton, the University of Cambridge and several other institutions, combined archeological data with palaeoclimatic reconstructions to show for the first time that climate dramatically impacted the migration of people across Europe, causing a dramatic slowdown between 6,100 BCE and 4,500 BCE. The research team, including Dr. Lia Betti, Senior Lecturer of the University of Roehampton, assembled a large database of the first arrival dates of Neolithic farmers across the continent and studied the speed of their migration in relation to climatic reconstructions of the time. They also re-analysed ancient DNA data to...

Scientists have found traces of rampant tooth decay in the teeth of people living almost 9,000 years ago in today's Poland. According to the researchers from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, the disease, which is also known as [cavities], could have been the result of consuming too much fruit and honey. Traditionally, it was thought that tooth decay became common only after man began to lead a sedentary lifestyle and use more processed cereal products. But, with farmers not appearing in Poland until about 7,000 years ago, the 9,000-year-old discovery has taken the scientists by surprise... Professor Jacek...

Through deep genetic analyses, Stanford Medicine scientists and their collaborators have found conclusive scientific evidence of contact between ancient Polynesians and Native Americans from the region that is now Colombia—something that's been hotly contested in the historic and archaeological world for decades. (snip) Before the study brought scientific evidence to the debate, the idea that Native Americans and Polynesians had crossed paths originated from a complex—both in its structure and origins—carbohydrate: the sweet potato. It turns out the sweet potato, which was originally domesticated in South and Central America, has also been known to grow in one other place prior...

American families are getting smaller and yet chickens are getting larger. As we begin 2017, Americans can look back at 2016 as yet another year with record-high chicken consumption—an average of 89.6 pounds per person. That’s more than three times as much as our grandparents ate. Chickens we eat today are twice as big as they were 60 years ago. In 1955, the average weight of chickens sold on market was 3.07 pounds, while the number for the first half of 2016 was 6.18 pounds, according to National Chicken Council, a nonprofit trade organization based in Washington, D.C.

[Summary] Chickens outnumber all other species of birds by an order of magnitude and they are humanity's single largest source of animal protein. Yet for 2 centuries, biologists have struggled to explain how the chicken became the chicken. Now, the first extensive study of the bird's full genome concludes that people in northern Southeast Asia or southern China domesticated a colorful pheasant sometime after about 7500 B.C.E. People then carried the bird across Asia and on to every continent except Antarctica. The research team also found that the modern chicken's chief ancestor is a subspecies of red jungle fowl named...

A New Mexico restaurant generated controversy -- and profits -- this summer with a play on "Black Lives Matter." Now it's coasting on the uproar that began with its sign and has printed hats and T-shirts with the phrase, jumping straight into the seemingly never-ending national conversation on race. Rick Camuglia, owner of Paisano's, an Italian restaurant in Albuquerque, put the phrase "black olives matter" on his sign last month to help sell a new tuna dish with black olive tapenade. It worked like a charm, bringing in more business, with some people adding black olives to every dish they...

The owner of an Italian restaurant in New Mexico says he’s seen a surge in business after posting a billboard that featured a food-centric pun playing off the Black Lives Matter slogan. Rick Camuglia, owner of Paisano’s in Albuquerque, posted what he thought would be a well-received joke on the marquee sign in front of his restaurant last week. It read: "BLACK OLIVES MATTER — TRY OUR TAPENADE."

Paisano’s Italian restaurant was accused of making a joke in poor taste against the “Black Lives Matter” protest when it shared the “Black Olives Matter Try Our Tapenade” slogan out the front of its Alburquerque, New Mexico, premises. People have taken to social media to slam the slogan, with Claudia Sanchez writing: “As a woman of color I find your posting offensive and in very bad taste. “You simply wish to rub salt in an ugly festering wound which evil minded people refuse to allow to heal. The civilized world no longer has any tolerance for your hateful public display...

Villagers in what is today Israel were the first to cultivate olive trees, an international study that pooled data from countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea has concluded. This start of olive domestication apparently began in the Galilee around 7,000 to 6,500 years ago, the team estimates. Olives and especially olive oil were staples of ancient economies around the Mediterranean Basin: The oil was used for cooking, lighting as well as medicinal and ritual purposes. But so far there has been little agreement among researchers as to where and when people first domesticated the plant. Dating estimates have ranged from more...

Human communities in the Levant at this time were known as Natufian. They were primarily hunters and foragers and are considered the first non-nomadic society; the semi-sedentary habits of Natufian culture were likely a precursor to humans settling down and becoming farmers. At the el-Wad Terrace settlement, the site was densely layered with animal remains, of which "a high percentage" belonged to lizards and snakes, the researchers reported in a new study, published online June 10 in the journal Scientific Reports. The quantity of squamate bones at the site was astonishing; that alone hinted at human consumption as a possible...

From The TimesNorman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent March 24, 2008 The lowly sweet potato may unlock America’s past How the root vegetable found it's way across the Pacific One of the enduring mysteries of world history is whether the Americas had any contact with the Old World before Columbus, apart from the brief Viking settlement in Newfoundland. Many aspects of higher civilisation in the New World, from the invention of pottery to the building of pyramids, have been ascribed to European, Asian or African voyagers, but none has stood up to scrutiny. The one convincing piece of evidence for pre-Hispanic contact...

Artist's reconstruction of the world's oldest modern bird, Asteriornis maastrichtensis, in its original environment. 66.7 million years ago parts of Belgium were covered by a shallow sea, and conditions were similar to modern tropical beaches like The Bahamas. Asteriornis lived at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, a time when mosasaurs (giant marine reptiles) swam in the oceans, and Tyrannosaurus rex lived on land. Asteriornis had fairly long legs and may have prowled the tropical shoreline. Credit: Phillip Krzeminski ==================================================================== The oldest fossil of a modern bird yet found, dating from the age of dinosaurs, has been identified by...

On paper, Toxoplasma gondii looks as if it ought to be the most famous parasite on earth. This single-celled pathogen infects over half the world's population, including an estimated 50 million Americans. Each of Toxoplasma's victims carries thousands of the parasites, many residing in the brain. As if that were not enough of an accomplishment, Toxoplasma is equally adept at infecting all other warm-blooded animals, as disparate as chickens and kangaroos. Scientists are now discovering some of the secrets of Toxoplasma's success. Researchers in Sweden report that the parasite fans out through the body by manipulating mobile cells that are...

Los Angeles, Oct. 30, 2002 - Scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California have, for the first time, shown experimentally the steps in the origin and development of feathers, using the techniques of molecular biology. Their findings will have implications for the study of the morphogenesis of various epithelial organs-from hairs to lung tissue to mammary glands-and is already shedding light on the controversy over the evolution of dinosaur scales into avian feathers.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Eating less meat will not reduce global warming, and claims that it will distract from efforts to find real solutions to climate change, a leading air quality expert said Monday. "We certainly can reduce our greenhouse gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis, said as he presented a report on meat-eating and climate change at a conference of the American Chemical Society in California. Blaming cows and pigs for climate change is scientifically inaccurate, said Mitloehner, dismissing several reports, including one issued in...

I’m wondering, since this BLM movement seems to have gained the upper hand in the US, before extra-governmental groups begin going to rural areas and demanding White owners give up their farms and. Businesses. It happened in South Africa, I believe it’s just a matter of time.