Entries from December 2005

December 27, 2005

The anthropology of race and the discovery of a skin color gene, SLC24A5

MSNBC, NPR, and BBC News have run articles about a publication in Science run nearly two weeks ago about one of the genes that control skin pigmentation in humans. The source article is titled, “SLC24A5, a Putative Cation Exchanger, Affects Pigmentation in Zebrafish and Humans” and is led by a team of pathologists, molecular biologists, [...]

December 20, 2005

Closing the time gap between then human-chimpanzee divergence

Sudhir Kumar, from the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics in the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State, has led a paper published in yesterday’s Proceedings of the National Academy on Sciences redefining the time human lineage diverged from chimpanzee lineage. Previously, there was a wide time range between the divergence… roughly 3 million to 13 million [...]

December 7, 2005

Appeals for kidnapped archaeologist’s release

From Savage Minds, I have upsetting news of an archaeologist who has been kidnapped in Iraq,
“Susanne Osthoff, a German archaeologist who has worked since the invasion to document looted and damaged sites in Iraq, and to deliver humanitarian aid for a German relief agency, has been kidnapped, along with her driver. Saving Antiquities For Everyone [...]