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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Thursday Night: Look up too see Space Station – WDSU New Orleans

Posted: May 26, 2017 at 3:41 am

Thursday Night: Look up to see Space Station

Humidity makes a big comeback Saturday and Sunday.

Updated: 8:35 PM CDT May 25, 2017

Look up to see the Space Station at 8:07 to 8:13 pm. Sunny skies forecast Friday. Highs upper 80s to near 90. Humidity makes a big comeback Saturday and Sunday. Heat index climbs into upper 90s. Slight rain chance Saturday and 20% chance Sunday. Rain chances go up Monday at Tuesday to a 50% chance. Keep an eye to the sky.

http://www.wdsu.com/weather

WEBVTT LIVE AT NOPD HEADQUARTERS,TRAVERS MACKEL, WDSU NEWS.MARGARET: WE ARE TALKING ABEAUTIFUL DAY TODAY.LOOK OUT AT THE LAKEFRONT.DEAR MEMBER YESTERDAY?-- DO YOU REMEMBER YESTERDAY?NORTHWES WIND, NOW WE HAVE ASOUTHWEST WIND.LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUS PICTUREFROM DAVID MOORE AND HE SAIDGOOD MORNING AND DO YOU KNOWWHAT A GOOD MORNING IT WAS.LOOK AT THESE LOW TEMPERATURES.WE HAD A LOWS IN THE MID-50'S.THE AVERAGE LOW IS ACTUALLY 70.WE HAVE A LOW AT THE AIRPORT OF57.BELOW THAT AVERAGE OF 87, ENJOYIT, TEMPERATURES ARE GOING UPTOMORROW.83, A WEST-SOUTHWEST WIND.IT IS FEELING NICE.LOOK AT THESE TEMPERATURES ALLACROSS THE AREA, LOW-80'S,HAMMOND AND BATON ROUGE AT 84DEGREES.IT IS PRETTY MUCH ASSUME -- MUCHWEST-SOUTHWEST.WE ARE WARMER THAN WE WEREYESTERDAY AT THIS TIME.6:00 HERE, 82 THE LOW-80'S.TONIGHT, YOU CAN GO OUT AGAINAND YOU CAN SEE THE SPACESTATION.CODY SENT THIS IN LAST NIGHTOVER IN BROOKHAVEN.IT IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE BITEARLIER, RIGHT THERE AT 8:07.YOU LOOK TO THE SOUTHWEST BUTTHEN RIGHT WHEN IT IS EAST OFNE ORLEANS, THAT IS WHEN IT ISGOING TO BE AT THE HIGHESTELEVATION SO 8:07 TO 8:13.LOOK OUTSIDE, IT IS REALLY ATREAT.SULA SAID SHE JUST SNEEZED.GRASS POLLEN IS HIGH.WE CAN CHECK OUT WHAT ISHAPPENING, HARDLY ANY CLOUDS.LIVE RIGHT HERE, THAT ISACTUALLY A LATE BREES -- LATEBREES BECAUSE -- LAKE BREEZE.NO RAIN FORECAST TONIGHT.NO RAIN FORECAST FOR YOURFRIDAY.AS YOU GO INTO SATURDAY, THEREIS A SLIGHT CHANCE OF RAIN ANDYOU WILL NOTICE A FEW MORECLOUDS.IN THE MORNING, LOW-60'S TO THEUPPER-60'S FOR YOUR LOWS.UPPER-80'S TO NEAR-90 AND IT ISBECAUSE OF THAT SOUTH WINDS.IT IS GOING TO BE PUMPING IN THEMOISTURE AS WELL.FOR GREEK FEST, FRIDAY,UPPER-80'S TO 90'S.LOOK AT TOMORROW, GORGEOUS.I CANNOT GO TO GREET FESTTOMORROW, I'M GOING TO GUESSSATURDAY OR SUNDAY.IF YOU GO ON SUNDAY AND WHEREYOUR TOGA, YOU GET ENTRY.-- WEAR YOUR TOGA, YOU GET IN

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Thursday Night: Look up too see Space Station - WDSU New Orleans

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Elon will likely reveal more details on his Big Mars Colonization Rocket at IAC 2017 Sept 25-29 2017 – Next Big Future

Posted: at 3:41 am

Elon Musk will likely reveal more details about the Interplanetary Transport system on the one year anniversary of the first announcement at the 2016 International Astronautical conference. IAC2017, hosted by the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) will take place in Adelaide, Australia from 25 29 September 2017.

Robert Zubrin, Longtime Mars Colonization advocate, gave a Critique of the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System.

Zubrin was struck by many good and powerful ideas in the Musk plan. However, Musks plan assembled some of those good ideas in an extremely suboptimal way, making the proposed system impractical. Still, with some corrections, a system using the core concepts Musk laid out could be made attractive not just as an imaginative concept for the colonization of Mars, but as a means of meeting the nearer-at-hand challenge of enabling human expeditions to the planet.

Zubrin explains the conceptual flaws of the new SpaceX plan, showing how they can be corrected to benefit, first, the near-term goal of initiating human exploration of the Red Planet, and then, with a cost-effective base-building and settlement program, the more distant goal of future Mars colonization.

Robert Zubrin, a New Atlantis contributing editor, is president of Pioneer Energy of Lakewood, Colorado, and president of the Mars Society.

Highlights * Have the second stage go only out to the distance of the moon and return to enable 5 payloads to be sent instead of one * Leave the 100 person capsule on Mars and only have a small cabin return to earth * use the refueling in orbit and other optimizations to enable a Falcon Heavy to deliver 40 tons to Mars instead of 12 for exploration missions in 2018, 2020 etc * Reusable first stage makes rocketplanes going anywhere point to point on Earth feasible. Falcon Heavy would have the capacity of a Boeing 737 and could travel in about one hour of time anywhere

There are videos of the Elon Musk presentation and an interview with Zubrin about the Musk plan at the bottom of the article

Spacex Falcon Heavy

Design of the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System

As described by Musk, the SpaceX ITS would consist of a very large two-stage fully-reusable launch system, powered by methane/oxygen chemical bipropellant. The suborbital first stage would have four times the takeoff thrust of a Saturn V (the huge rocket that sent the Apollo missions to the Moon). The second stage, which reaches orbit, would have the thrust of a single Saturn V. Together, the two stages could deliver a maximum payload of 550 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), about four times the capacity of the Saturn V. (Note: All of the tons referenced in this article are metric tons.)

At the top of the rocket, the spaceship itself where some hundred passengers reside is inseparable from the second stage. (Contrast this with, for example, NASAs lunar missions, where each part of the system was discarded in turn until just the Command Module carried the Apollo astronauts back to Earth.) Since the second-stage-plus-spaceship will have used its fuel in getting to orbit, it would need to refuel in orbit, filling up with about 1,950 tons of propellant (which means that each launch carrying passengers would require four additional launches to deliver the necessary propellant). Once filled up, the spaceship can head to Mars.

The duration of the journey would of course depend on where Earth and Mars are in their orbits; the shortest one-way trip would be around 80 days, according to Musks presentation, and the longest would be around 150 days. (Musk stated that he thinks the architecture could be improved to reduce the trip to 60 or even 30 days.)

After landing on Mars and discharging its passengers, the ship would be refueled with methane/oxygen bipropellant made on the surface of Mars from Martian water and carbon dioxide, and then flown back to Earth orbit.

Zubrins Problems with the Proposed Spacex System

The SpaceX plan as Musk described it contains nine notable features. If we examine each of these in turn, some of the strengths and weaknesses in the overall system will begin to present themselves.

1. Extremely large size. The proposed SpaceX launch system is four times bigger than a Saturn V rocket. This is a serious problem, because even with the companys impressively low development costs, SpaceX has no prospect of being able to afford the very large investment at least $10 billion required to develop a launch vehicle of this scale.

2. Use of methane/oxygen bipropellant for takeoff from Earth, trans-Mars injection, and direct return to Earth from the Martian surface. These ideas go together, and are very strong. Methane/oxygen is, after hydrogen/oxygen, the highest-performing practical propellant combination, and it is much more compact and storable than hydrogen/oxygen. It is very cheap, and is the easiest propellant to make on Mars. For over a quarter century, I have been a strong advocate of this design approach, making it a central feature of the Mars Direct mission architecture I first laid out in 1990 and described in my book The Case for Mars. However, it should be noted that while the manufacture of methane/oxygen from Martian carbon dioxide and water is certainly feasible, it is not without cost in effort, power, and capital facilities, and so the transportation system should be designed to keep this burden on the Mars base within manageable bounds.

3. The large scale manufacture of methane/oxygen bipropellant on the Martian surface from indigenous materials. Here I offer the same praise and the same note of caution as above. The use of in situ (that is, on-site) Martian resources makes the entire SpaceX plan possible, just as it is a central feature of my Mars Direct plan. But the scale of the entire mission architecture must be balanced with the production capacity that can realistically be established.

4. All flight systems are completely reusable. This is an important goal for minimizing costs, and SpaceX is already making substantial advances toward it by demonstrating the return and reuse of the first stage of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. However, for a mission component to be considered reusable it doesnt necessarily need to be returned to Earth and launched again. In general, it can make more sense to find other ways to reuse components off Earth that are already in orbit or beyond. This idea is reflected in some parts of the new SpaceX plan such as refilling the second stage in low Earth orbit but, as we shall see, it is ignored elsewhere, at considerable cost to program effectiveness. Furthermore the rate at which systems can be reused must also be considered.

5. Refilling methane/oxygen propellant in the booster second stage in Earth orbit. Here Musk and his colleagues face a technical challenge, since transferring cryogenic fluids in zero gravity has never been done. The problem is that in zero gravity two-phase mixtures float around with gas and liquid mixed and scattered among each other, making it difficult to operate pumps, while the ultra-cold nature of cryogenic fluids precludes the use of flexible bladders to effect the fluid transfer. However, I believe this is a solvable problem and one well worth solving, both for the benefits it offers this mission architecture and for different designs we may see in the future.

6. Use of the second stage to fly all the way to the Martian surface and back. This is a very bad idea. For one thing, it entails sending a 7-million-pound-force thrust engine, which would weigh about 60 tons, and its large and massive accompanying tankage all the way from low Earth orbit to the surface of Mars, and then sending them back, at great cost to mission payload and at great burden to Mars base-propellant production facilities. Furthermore, it means that this very large and expensive piece of capital equipment can be used only once every four years (since the feasible windows for trips to and from Mars occur about every two years).

7. The sending of a large habitat on a roundtrip from Earth to Mars and back. This, too, is a very bad idea, because the habitat will get to be used only one way, once every four years. If we are building a Mars base or colonizing Mars, any large habitat sent to the planets surface should stay there so the colonists can use it for living quarters. Going to great expense to send a habitat to Mars only to return it to Earth empty makes no sense. Mars needs houses.

8. Quick trips to Mars. If we accept the optimistic estimates that Musk offered during his presentation, the SpaceX system would be capable of 115-day (average) one-way trips from Earth to Mars, a somewhat faster journey than other proposed mission architectures. But the speedier trips impose a great cost on payload capability. And they raise the price tag, thereby undermining the architectures professed purpose colonizing Mars since the primary requirement for colonization is to reduce cost sufficiently to make emigration affordable. Lets do some back-of-the-envelope calculations. Following the example of colonial America, lets pick as the affordability criterion the property liquidation of a middle-class household, or seven years pay for a working man (say about $300,000 in todays equivalent terms), a criterion with which Musk roughly concurs. Most middle-class householders would prefer to get to Mars in six months at the cost equivalent to one house instead of getting to Mars in four months at a cost equivalent to three houses. For immigrants, who will spend the rest of their lives on Mars, or even explorers who would spend 2.5 years on a round trip, the advantage of reaching Mars one-way in four months instead of six months is negligible and if shaving off two months would require a reduction in payload, meaning fewer provisions could be brought along, then the faster trip would be downright undesirable. Furthermore, the six-month transit is actually safer, because it is also the trajectory that loops back to Earth exactly two years after departure, so the Earth will be there to meet it. And trajectories involving faster flights to Mars will necessarily loop further out into space if the landing on Mars is aborted, and thus take longer than two years to get back to Earths orbit, making the free-return backup abort trajectory impossible. The claim that the SpaceX plan would be capable of 60-day (let alone 30-day) one-way transits to Mars is not credible.

9. The use of supersonic retropropulsion to achieve landing on Mars. This is a breakthrough concept for landing large payloads, one that SpaceX has demonstrated successfully in landing the first stages of its Falcon 9 on Earth. Its feasibility for Mars has thus been demonstrated in principle. It should be noted, however, that SpaceX is now proposing to scale up the landing propulsion system by about a factor of 50 and employing such a landing techniques adds to the propulsive requirement of the mission, making the (unnecessary) goal of quick trips even harder to achieve.

Improving the SpaceX ITS Plan

Taking the above points into consideration, some corrections for the flaws in the current ITS plan immediately suggest themselves:

A. Instead of hauling the massive second stage of the launch vehicle all the way to Mars, the spacecraft should separate from it just before Earth escape. In this case, instead of flying all the way to Mars and back over 2.5 years, the second stage would fly out only about as far as the Moon, and return to aerobrake into Earth orbit a week after departure. If the refilling process could be done expeditiously, say in a week, it might thus be possible to use the second stage five times every mission opportunity (assuming a launch window of about two months), instead of once every other mission opportunity. This would increase the net use of the second stage propulsion system by a factor of 10, allowing five payloads to be delivered to Mars every opportunity using only one such system, instead of the ten required by the ITS baseline design. Without the giant second stage, the spaceship would then perform the remaining propulsive maneuver to fly to and land on Mars.

B. Instead of sending the very large hundred-person habitat back to Earth after landing it on Mars, it would stay on Mars, where it could be repurposed as a Mars surface habitat something that the settlers would surely find extremely useful. Its modest propulsive stage could be repurposed as a surface-to-surface long-range flight system, or scrapped to provide material to meet other needs of the people living on Mars. If the propulsive system must be sent back to Earth, it should return with only a small cabin for the pilots and such colonists as want to call it quits. Such a procedure would greatly increase the payload capability of the ITS system while reducing its propellant-production burden on the Mars base.

C. As a result of not sending the very large second stage propulsion system to the Martian surface and not sending the large habitat back from the Martian surface, the total payload available to send one-way to Mars is greatly increased while the propellant production requirements on Mars would be greatly reduced.

D. The notion of sacrificing payload to achieve one-way average transit times substantially below six months should be abandoned. However, if the goal of quick trips is retained, then the corrections specified above would make it much more feasible, greatly increasing payload and decreasing trip time compared to what is possible with the original approach.

Changing the plan in the ways described above would greatly improve the performance of the ITS. This is because the ITS in its original form is not designed to achieve the mission of inexpensively sending colonists and payloads to Mars. Rather, it is designed to achieve the science-fiction vision of the giant interplanetary spaceship. This is a fundamental mistake, although the temptation is understandable. (A similar visionary impulse influenced the design of NASAs space shuttle, with significant disadvantage to its performance as an Earth-to-orbit payload delivery system.) The central requirement of human Mars missions is not to create or operate giant spaceships. Rather, it is to send payloads from Earth to Mars capable of supporting groups of people, and then to send back such payloads as are necessary.

To put it another way: The visionary goal might be to create spaceships, but the rational goal is to send payloads.

Alternative Versions of the SpaceX ITS Plan

To get a sense of some of the benefits that would come from making the changes I [Zubrin] outlined above, lets make some estimates. In the table below, I [Zubrin] compare six versions of the ITS plan, half based on the visionary form that Elon Musk sketched out (called the Original or O design in the table) and half incorporating the alterations I [Zubrin] have suggested (the Revised or R designs).

Our starting assumptions: The ship begins the mission in a circular low Earth orbit with an altitude of 350 kilometers and an associated orbital velocity of 7.7 kilometers per second (km/s). Escape velocity for such a ship would be 10.9 km/s, so applying a velocity change (DV) of 3 km/s would still keep it in a highly elliptical orbit bound to the Earth. Adding another 1.2 km/s would give its payload a perigee velocity of 12.1 km/s, sufficient to send it on a six-month trajectory to Mars, with a two-year free-return option to Earth. (In calculating trip times to Mars, we assume average mission opportunities. In practice some would reach Mars sooner, some later, depending on the launch year, but all would maintain the two-year free return.) We assume a further 1.3 km/s to be required for midcourse corrections and landing using supersonic retropropulsion. For direct return to Earth from the Martian surface, we assume a total velocity change of 6.6 km/s to be required. In all cases, an exhaust velocity of 3.74 km/s (that is, a specific impulse of 382 s) for the methane/oxygen propulsion, and a mass of 2 tons of habitat mass per passenger are assumed. A maximum booster second-stage tank capacity of 1,950 tons is assumed, in accordance with the design data in Musks presentation.

Using the improved plan to send 40 tons (3.3 times more) to Mars with Falcon Heavy

Consider what this revised version of the ITS plan would look like in practice, if it were used not for settling Mars but for the nearer-at-hand task of exploring Mars. If a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle were used to send payloads directly from Earth, it could land only about 12 tons on Mars. (This is roughly what SpaceX is planning on doing in an unmanned Red Dragon mission as soon as 2018.) While it is possible to design a minimal manned Mars expedition around such a limited payload capability, such mission plans are suboptimal. But if instead, following the ITS concept, the upper stage of the Falcon Heavy booster were refueled in low Earth orbit, it could be used to land as much as 40 tons on Mars, which would suffice for an excellent human exploration mission. Thus, if booster second stages can be refilled in orbit, the size of the launch vehicle required for a small Mars exploration mission could be reduced by about a factor of three.

In all of the ITS variants discussed here, the entire flight hardware set would be fully reusable, enabling low-cost support of a permanent and growing Mars base. However, complete reusability is not a requirement for the initial exploration missions to Mars; it could be phased in as technological abilities improved. Furthermore, while the Falcon Heavy as currently designed uses kerosene/oxygen propulsion in all stages, not methane/oxygen, in the revised ITS plan laid out above only the propulsion system in the trans-Mars ship needs to be methane/oxygen, while both stages of the booster can use any sort of propellant. This makes the problem of refilling the second stage on orbit much simpler, because kerosene is not cryogenic, and thus can be transferred in zero gravity using flexible bladders, while liquid oxygen is paramagnetic, and so can be settled on the pumps side of the tank using magnets.

Dawn of the Spaceplanes

Toward the end of his presentation, Musk briefly suggested that one way to fund the development of the ITS might be to use it as a system for rapid, long-distance, point-to-point travel on Earth. This is actually a very exciting possibility, although I would add the qualifier that such a system would not be the ITS as described, but a scaled-down related system, one adapted to the terrestrial travel application.

For a rocketplane to travel halfway around the world would require a DV of about 7 km/s (6 km/s in physical velocity, and 1 km/s in liftoff gravity and drag losses). Assuming methane/oxygen propellant with an exhaust velocity of 3.4 km/s (it would be lower for a rocketplane than for a space vehicle, because exhaust velocity is reduced by surrounding air), such a vehicle, if designed as a single stage, would need to have a mass ratio of about 8, which means that only 12 percent of its takeoff mass could be solid material, accounting for all structures, while the rest would be propellant. On the other hand, if the rocketplane were boosted toward space by a reusable first stage that accomplished the first 3 km/s of the required DV, the flight vehicle would only need a mass ratio of about 3, allowing 34 percent of it to be structure. This reduction of the propellant-to-structure ratio from 7:1 down to 2:1 is the difference between a feasible system and an infeasible one.

In short, what Musk has done by making reusable first stages a reality is to make rocketplanes possible. But there is no need to wait for 500-ton-to-orbit transports. In fact, his Falcon 9 reusable first stage, which is already in operation, could enable globe-spanning rocketplanes with capacities comparable to the DC-3, while the planned Falcon Heavy (or New Glenn) launch vehicles could make possible rocketplanes with the capacity of a Boeing 737.

Nextbigfuture notes that reusable first stages are now technically functioning but safety and reliability would need to be improved by about 1000 to 10,000 times for point to point manned travel.

SOURCES- Spacex, Zubrin, the New Atlantis, Twitter

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Study Implicates Two Genetic Variants in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Development – Newswise (press release)

Posted: at 3:39 am

Newswise Researchers are working to determine why the aortic valve doesnt form correctly in patients with the most common congenital heart defect: bicuspid aortic valve.

In a new Nature Communications study, the Michigan Medicine-led group found two genetic variants associated with the condition.

Bicuspid aortic valve is moderately heritable, yet experts are still figuring out which part of our DNA code explains why some BAV patients inherit the disease.

Weve completed the first successful genomewide study of bicuspid aortic valve, by studying subjects at U-Ms Frankel Cardiovascular Center, says first author Bo Yang, M.D., Ph.D., a Michigan Medicine cardiac surgeon. We are using state-of-the-art technology of induced stem cell and gene editing to dissect the genomic region we found to be associated with BAV. Its a great collaboration that will accelerate our scientific understanding of this disease.

BAV patients have aortic valves with only two leaflets, rather than three, limiting the valves function as the heart pumps oxygen-rich blood toward the aorta to enrich the body. The condition is associated with various complications, including a narrowed valve (aortic stenosis), a leaky valve (aortic insufficiency or regurgitation), an infection of the valve or an aortic aneurysm.

A great head start

The researchers performed genomewide association scans of 466 BAV cases from the Frankel Cardiovascular Center and 4,660 controls from the Michigan Genomics Initiative, with replication on 1,326 cases and 8,103 controls from collaborators at other leading institutions. They also reprogrammed the matured white blood cells to change them back into immortal cells (stem cells) and changed the genetic code of those cells to study the function of the variants they identified through the genomewide association study.

The team reports two genetic variants, both affecting a key cardiac transcription factor called GATA4, reached or nearly reached genomewide significance in BAV. GATA4 is a protein important to cardiovascular development in the womb, and GATA4 mutations have been associated with other cardiovascular defects.

One of the regions we identify actually changes the protein coded by the gene, and the other likely changes expression levels of GATA4 during valve formation, says senior author Cristen Willer, Ph.D., professor of internal medicine, human genetics and computational medicine and bioinformatics. Because most genetic variants associated with human disease are in the 99 percent of the genome that doesnt code for proteins, this finding gives us a great head start toward understanding the mechanism of how a genetic change outside the protein-coding part of the genome can lead to disease.

Specifically, the authors point to a disruption during the endothelial-mesenchymal transition, which is a critical step in the development of the aortic valve. Willer and Yang say this study, with support from the Frankel CVC and the Bob and Ann Aikens Aortic Program, adds new knowledge about the mechanism of BAV formation. They plan to continue to study the biological effect of both variants associated BAV in cells and animal models.

Collaborators from a variety of institutions provided replication of the result, including Harvard Medical School, the University of Texas, the Montreal Heart Institute, the Karolinska Institute and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

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Study Implicates Two Genetic Variants in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Development - Newswise (press release)

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Genetic Mutation Studies Help Validate New Strategy for Reducing Lipids, Cholesterol – Newswise (press release)

Posted: at 3:39 am

Newswise PHILADELPHIAA new strategy an injectable antibody for lowering blood lipids and thereby potentially preventing coronary artery disease and other conditions caused by the build-up of fats, cholesterol, and other substances on the artery walls, is supported by findings from two new studies from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The new approach targets a protein called ANGPTL3, a regulator of enzymes that clear triglycerides and other fat molecules from the blood. Research in recent years has hinted that inherited mutations in the ANGPTL3 gene that disable its function can decrease triglyceride, LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol levels.

As reported in a paper published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Penn Medicine, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and a group of international collaborators studied ANGPTL3 in both humans and mice. They found that blocking ANGPTL3 activity with an investigative injectable antibody, known as evinacumab, reduced triglycerides by up to 76 percent and lowered LDL cholesterol 23 percent in human study participants, and largely reversed signs of atherosclerosis in a mouse models.

Researchers also included a human genetics study of approximately 188,000 people, which found that carriers of mutations that disable ANGPTL3 had nearly 40 percent fewer incidents of coronary artery disease as compared to those with fully functioning ANGPTL3.

In the clinic, I treat many patients with very high triglycerides, but our current medications arent lowering triglycerides enough in many cases. Im delighted at the prospect of a new treatment thats a lot more potent, all the more because it lowers LDL at the same time, said study co-author Richard L. Dunbar, MD, assistant professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and member of Penns Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics. Its very reassuring to see that people with this genetic defect actually seem to be protected from heart disease. I think that really bodes well for a therapeutic thats targeting the ANGPTL3 pathway.

In a separate study, published in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) researchers from Penn Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Washington University in St. Louis, and nine other institutions, who also studied humans and mice, reported on a similar set of findings. Among these was the discovery from another large population sample that carriers of ANGPTL3-inactivating mutations had a 34 percent lower rate of coronary artery disease compared to non-carriers.

We used different lines of evidence to show that ANGPTL3 deficiency is associated with a reduced risk of coronary artery disease, said study co-author Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Penn. But ultimately we were able to identify that fact that carriers of this genetic mutation did in fact experience a benefit with little other health risk.

A beneficial gene defect

The trial of research on ANGPTL3 as a potential target for atherosclerosis prevention began over a decade ago when scientists reported on two cases of familial hypolipidemia, a rare inherited condition involving abnormally low blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Most cases of familial hypolipidemia are linked to other gene mutations that cause liver and digestive problems, but in members of this American family with the condition, Musunuru found mutations in the gene for ANGPTL3, and no associated health problems.

In the NEJM study from Dunbar and colleagues, the antibody had similar effects in an initial clinical trial in 83 people, lowering the blood levels of triglycerides measured after fasting by about 75 percent at the highest dose, and lowering LDL cholesterol by about 30 percent.

Statins and other drugs are already widely used to lower LDL cholesterol, but there are fewer options for lowering triglycerides. For treating high triglyceride levels theres really nothing out there thats quite this potent, so thats where I expect this new approach to have its greatest therapeutic benefit, Dunbar said.

Hypertriglyceridemia, a condition in which fasting triglyceride levels are greater than 150 mg/dL, is estimated to affect at least tens of millions of American adults. It is associated with coronary artery disease and other forms of atherosclerosis, and can lead to potentially fatal inflammation of the pancreas.

In principle, the strategy of targeting ANGPTL3 could have an even broader use in treating atherosclerosis in the general population. The researchers found that in a mouse model of atherosclerosis, treatment with evinacumab reduced the area of atherosclerotic lesions by 39 percent.

The population study findings, including those from the JACC study, suggest that even the partial inactivation of ANGPTL3carriers typically have one mutant copy of the gene and one working copymay be powerfully protective against coronary artery disease, which has long been one of the leading causes of death in developed countries. In the JACC study, for example, carriers of inactivating ANGPTL3 mutations had only a 17 percent reduction in triglycerides on average. But that modest reduction was associated with a 34 percent reduction in coronary artery disease risk. Moreover, Musunuru and his colleagues found that the people in their sample with the lowest blood levels of ANGPTL3 had a 35 percent lower rate of heart attacks compared to those with the highest ANGPTL3 levels.

Dunbar noted that the population study findings probably have lain to rest a lingering concern about targeting ANGPTL3, namely its effect in lowering not just LDL and triglycerides but also the so-called good cholesterol, known as HDL cholesterol. If lowering HDL were a major concern, then I dont think we would have seen the evidence of overall benefit that we did in this study, he said.

The two studies together suggest that single copies of inactivating ANGPTL3 mutations are found in roughly one of every 250 people of European descent, whereas people with mutations in both copies of the geneas in the family studied by Musunuru and colleaguesare much rarer.

According to Dunbar, the next logical step would be to take evinacumab into larger clinical trials to study its safety, effectiveness, and optimal dosing. The effect of even a single dose lasts for several months, and its plausible that with multiple doses we would see an even deeper and more sustained effect, he said.

Additional Penn authors on the NEJM study include Scott Damrauer, MD, Aeron Small, and Daniel J. Rader MD, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology study include Xiao Wang, PhD, Daniel J. Rader, MD, and Danish Saleheen, MBBS, PhD.

Funding sources for the studies detailed in this press release included grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (R01HL131961), (K08HL114642), (R01HL118744), (R01HL127564) and (R21HL120781) and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.

Editors Note: Dunbar has received grant support from and consulted for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

###

Penn Medicineis one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of theRaymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and theUniversity of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $6.7 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 20 years, according toU.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $392 million awarded in the 2016 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals byU.S. News & World Report-- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2016, Penn Medicine provided $393 million to benefit our community.

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Genetic Mutation Studies Help Validate New Strategy for Reducing Lipids, Cholesterol - Newswise (press release)

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DNA Heritage Companies Put To The Test With Quadruplets CBS … – CBS Sacramento

Posted: at 3:38 am

May 24, 2017 11:52 PM By Kurtis Ming

SAN RAMON (CBS13) With 11-year-old quadruplets, its chaos in the Jones household.

Gabe plays guitar, Zeb is the tech guy, Katie holds her own as the only girl, and Hugh is the athlete.

Theyre very different, mom Amy said. Very individualistic. They all have different likes dislikes, dress differently, different friends.

Gabe and Zeb are identical twins. Katie and Hugh are fraternal twins.

Mom was surprised to learn she was 35percent from Ireland when she did her own Ancestry DNA test through ancestry.com.

That was a total shock. I was always told we were Dutch or British, she said.

Although, shes not so sure these tests are accurate.

It got us wondering what would happen if we tested her quadruplets?

We collected samples from each of the kids and sent them to AncestryDNA and 23andMe. To shake things up a bit, we also changed each of their last names to sound ethnic; Gabe Hernandez, Hugh McDonald, Katie Nguyen and Zeb Patel. We mailed in our samples separately so they wouldnt all arrive together.

Close to two months later, we have our results.

23andMe gives you the option of choosing the percentage of confidence. We chose 90 percent, which should give us the most accurate results, while the 50 percent and 70 percent show more of a probable breakdown of heritage based on the DNA databases.

Despite giving identical twins Gabe and Zeb very different last names, their results show identical heritage. Although fraternal twins Katie and Hugh show different results. In fact, Katie is nearly twice as British and Irish as the identical twins.

DNA expert Ruth Ballard who teaches at Sacramento State University says thats to be expected. She says identical twins should have identical results, but fraternal twins may have inherited different percentages of heritage from each parent.

Sometimes you get more of this. Sometimes you get more of that, Ballard said. Its an estimate, but it gives you a pretty darn good idea where you come from.

After eight weeks, in what AncestryDNA calls a 6-to-8-week long process, we only had three of the four results back.

Its difficult to compare AncestryDNA to 23andMe, because the companies use different heritage breakdowns. For example, AncestryDNA breaks down British and Irish separately, and 23andMe clumps them together.

Although we were very surprised to see through the DNA alone, AncestryDNA linked the siblings to one another as immediate family. The site also identified Amy as their mother from her previous test.

That actually surprised me a little bit with the change of their last name, mom Amy said.

Both sites say they protect your DNA. They allow you to pick your privacy settings and delete your results. However, Dr. Ballard says you dont want your DNA to get into the wrong hands. She says your DNA could tell an insurance company or employers the diseases youre prone to, which she worries could keep someone from getting insurance or a job promotion. She suggests anyone with these concerns to avoid using these services, or to change their last name, much like we did with the quads.

Amys not so sure she trusts the accuracy of the ethnic percentages but says she is fascinated by the results.

You never know where you come from until you start looking.

Eight-time Emmy Award winner Kurtis MingisCBS13's consumer investigative reporter.Since joining CBS13 in 2003, he's held the position of general assignment reporter and weekend anchor, before starting the "Call Kurtis" consumer advocacy program,...

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Ancestry.com denies exploiting users’ DNA – BBC News – BBC News

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BBC News

Ancestry.com denies exploiting users' DNA - BBC News
BBC News
A leading genealogy service, Ancestry.com, has denied exploiting users' DNA following criticism of its terms and conditions. The US company's DNA testing ...

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DNA (Little Mix album) – Wikipedia

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DNA is the debut studio album by British girl group Little Mix. It was released on 19 November 2012 in the United Kingdom[1] via Syco Music. The group began work recording the album in December 2011 and concluded in September 2012. Throughout the recording process, Little Mix worked with several producers, including TMS, Future Cut, Steve Mac, Jarrad Rogers, Richard "Biff" Stannard, Ash Howes, Jon Levine, Xenomania, Fred Ball and Pegasus. The album was co-written by Little Mix and they stated that they were involved in the development of the album as much as possible. Sonically, the album is primarily a mixture of pop and R&B records, with influences from dance-pop, pop rock and hip hop found on specific songs as well. The album's lyrical content explores empowerment, relationships and heartbreak. Songs on the album were also co-written by members of other girl groups, including Nicola Roberts of Girls Aloud, Shaznay Lewis of All Saints and T-Boz of TLC.

DNA received mixed reviews from music critics. The album's lead single, "Wings", was released on 26 August 2012, reaching number one in UK and Ireland as well as charting in Australia, New Zealand, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belgium, Canada and the US. The second single, "DNA", was released on 11 November 2012, peaking at number three in the UK. Two post-album singles were released: "Change Your Life" on 3 February 2013, and a remix of "How Ya Doin'?" featuring American rapper Missy Elliott was released on 17 April 2013; both songs reached the top 20 in the UK.

The album charted in the top 5 in eight countries, including number three in the UK, and at number four on the US Billboard 200; making Little Mix the first girl group since Danity Kane in 2006 to reach the top 5 with their debut album, as well as earning the highest debut Billboard chart position by a British girl group, breaking the record previously held by the Spice Girls' debut album Spice (1996).

Shortly after Little Mix won the eighth series of The X Factor, both Gary Barlow and Richard "Biff" Stannard were rumoured to be writing songs for the group's debut studio album.[2] On 25 January 2012, the group made an appearance at the National Television Awards, and performed the En Vogue song "Don't Let Go (Love)". They also accompanied The X Factor judges Barlow and Tulisa Contostavlos on stage to receive the Best Talent Show award won by the programme.[3] During an interview backstage, the group confirmed that they themselves had been writing material for their debut album, however had not yet received any input from Gary Barlow; and that plans to release their next single in March of that year were underway. It was announced, shortly after, that the release of the single had been delayed, and would now not be released until August.[4]

On 30 May 2012, the group announced through a live stream via Twitcam that their new single would be called "Wings", and a short snippet would premiere on Channel 4 that week after being played at their filming session for Alan Carr: Chatty Man. The group performed the single for the first time at the T4 on the Beach concert on 1 July 2012.[5] "Wings" received its official premiere on BBC Radio 1 on 2 July 2012. The single debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart on 2 September 2012.[6] On 17 September, the album's artwork was unveiled via the group's official Facebook page, which also confirmed that the album's second single, "DNA", would premiere on radio on 1 October and would be officially released on 12 November, a week prior to the release of the album.[7] The album's track listing was revealed on 28 September 2012 when it was posted on Amazon.co.uk.[1] An exclusive version of the album sold at HMV came with a free CD single of "DNA".[8]

Little Mix began their first overseas promotional campaign for the album on 28 October 2012 in Sydney. The group appeared on The X Factor (Australia),[9] giving a live performance of their single "Wings", which had already been released in Australia. The following morning, the group appeared on Sunrise.[citation needed] Their Australian promotional tour lasted a week and destinations included Sydney and Melbourne.[citation needed] In February 2013, the group conducted a social network campaign called "Mixers Magnets", in which fans worldwide took part in games set by the girls; points were awarded to fan's countries, with the girls performing in the Top 3.[citation needed] The campaign was won by Italy, France and the USA.[citation needed] The girls made their subsequent performances in France and Italy for the Album's April release.[citation needed]

Little Mix performed "Wings" for the first time at the T4 on the Beach concert on 1 July.[10][11] They also performed on Friday Download on 13 July, and on the second episode of the second series of Red or Black?, which aired on 25 August. On 18 July, the group performed a live acoustic session of "Wings" on In:Demand.[12] They also performed at G-A-Y Heaven on 18 August, which was celebrating their first birthday as a group. Little Mix released an acoustic version of "Wings" in late August.[citation needed]

On 3 September, after they reached number one with "Wings", they performed on the relaunch show of Daybreak.[citation needed] On 30 October and 31 October, the quartet performed on Australian The X Factor and Sunrise respectively. The group performed "Wings" and "DNA" live on BBC Radio 1's Teen Awards 2012.[13] On 24 October 2012, the group performed an a cappella version of "DNA" during a live UStream video.[14] On 16 November 2012, for Children In Need, Little Mix performed the song 'Change Your Life'.[citation needed] Little Mix made an appearance on BBC Breakfast to promote their album on 21 November.[citation needed] As part of the promotion, Little Mix performed an acoustic version of DNA on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, as well as on ITV show Loose Women on 23 November 2012.[citation needed]

On 30 May 2012, Little Mix confirmed the lead single and its title via Twitcam. For the single, "Wings", Little Mix worked with TMS, who co-produced the albums of MOBO-winning artists Emeli Sand and Tinchy Stryder.[citation needed] "Wings" was released by Syco records on 26 August 2012 in the UK and Ireland. It was later released in Australia and New Zealand on 5 October 2012. The song peaked at number one in the United Kingdom and Ireland, while reaching number 3 in Australia and 15 in New Zealand. The single also charted in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak, Belgium, USA and Canada. Upon the first week of release, the single sold 107,000 copies.[15] Since then, "Wings" has also been certified Gold in Australia and New Zealand.[16]

The song "DNA", was selected as the second single from the album. The song was co-written and produced by TMS. The single was made available for digital download on iTunes on 11 November 2012. The song shares the same name as the album and during an interview, Jesy said that the song showed "a completely different side to Little Mix".[citation needed] "Change Your Life" was released as the third single on 3 February 2013.[17] "How Ya Doin'?" was chosen as the fourth and final single from the album. The single version features singer/rapper, Missy Elliott and premiered on UK radio station Capital FM on 27 March 2013.[18] The single was originally scheduled for a digital release on 5 May 2013, but instead was released on 17 April 2013.[citation needed]

Upon its release, DNA received positive reviews from music critics. Al Fox from BBC Music was positive stating, "With placid, feline production, tight harmonies and breezy beats, much of DNA ambles along the well-trodden path of the temperate demi-ballad. But its the ventures away from this that prove Little Mix function far better either side of mid-tempo."[24] Matt Collar of AllMusic gave the album three and a half stars out of 5 saying, "The 2011 winners of Britain's The X Factor TV show, four-piece girl group Little Mix deliver a slick, high-energy mix of dance-oriented pop music with their debut full-length album, 2012's DNA...Little Mix make good on their promise of updating the '90s girl group sound of En Vogue and TLC."[20] Rebecca Nicholson from The Guardian commented, "Their debut album arrives a year after the fact, and establishes their identity nicely, which is to say that they're being positioned as a sort of updated Girls Aloud with enormous drums and plenty of very "now" early-90s R&B references...When off-kilter beats collide with impeccable harmonies and pleasingly daft lyrics (literally, in the case of Madhouse, with its "Men in white coats, don't take me back there" line), it sounds like pop as it should be...", awarding the album three out of five stars.[citation needed]

In the United Kingdom, as part of Amazon.com's Black Friday Deals Week, more than 500 customised versions of the album were sold out in just 13 seconds of release online. This surpassed a previous record set by One Direction's debut album Up All Night (2011), which was part of the same promotion the previous year. Customised versions of Up All Night sold out in just under one minute, nearly three times slower than that of Little Mix.[26] In Ireland, the album entered the chart at number three, behind Rihanna's Unapologetic and One Direction's Take Me Home. In the UK, it also placed in the same position behind the same two albums. By the end of the year, the album sold 234,000 copies, placing it 39th on the Top 40 biggest selling albums of the year.[27] On 19 July 2013, DNA was officially certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry.[28] The album spent a total of 36 weeks on the UK charts[29] and has sold 403,116 copies as of November 2016.[30]

After its Europe-wide release, the album placed in the top 5 in Italy and Norway, in the top 10 in Czech Republic and Sweden, in the top 20 in Denmark and Spain, in the top 30 in France and Portugal, and in the top 50 in Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. It was released in United States and Canada on 28 May. DNA has peaked in the top 10 of eight countries worldwide, including the UK, Australia and Italy.

In the US, DNA entered the Billboard 200 album chart at number four after selling over 50,000 copies, behind the albums of Daft Punk (Random Access Memories), Alice in Chains (The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here and John Fogerty (Wrote a Song for Everyone). DNA was the highest charting debut-week entry album by a British girl group in the US; a record previously held by the Spice Girls' debut album Spice (1997) which debuted at number six, but which later went on to number one.[31] On digital sales alone, DNA was second in the charts.[32] As of December 2013, the album has sold over 121,000 copies in the US.[33]

Notes

Adapted from AllMusic.[40]

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What the DNA of the Zika virus tells scientists about its rapid spread – Los Angeles Times

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A family tree can reveal a lot, especially if it belongs to a microscopic troublemaker with a knack for genetic shape-shifting.

DNA sleuthing can outline the route an emerging pathogen might take once it makes landfall in the Americas and encounters a wholly unprotected population. Its a modern take on old-fashioned public health surveillance strategies that focused on the exhaustive collection and analysis of samples from the field. Now theyve been bolstered by rapid genome sequencing and the result can be a picture of an epidemic rendered in exquisite detail, and in near-real time.

For those trying to anticipate the shape of the next pandemic of human disease, the resulting road map could be invaluable.

Three independent research groups demonstrated the promise of such an approach by creating a family tree of the Zika virus, the latest scourge to hit the Americas. Their work was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The family tree reveals that the virus may have made landfall in Brazil sometime in late 2013 or early 2014, probably arriving from a group of Pacific islands then in the grips of an outbreak.

Upon finding ideal conditions in northeastern Brazil including dense human populations and hordes of the Aedes egyptii mosquitoes that spread the virus Zika circulated widely throughout the country for more than a year before its presence was first detected in mid-2015, one of the studies found. By then, physicians had begun to take note of a sharp rise in births of babies with unusually small heads the first of 2,366 babies with Zika-related microcephaly eventually born in Brazil by the end of 2016.

But the Zika virus didnt stay put. By late 2014, it had broken out of Brazil and was circulating in the Caribbean, following a well-worn path of human migrants. As 2015 dawned, the same strain was also tearing through the populations of Honduras and Colombia.

Brazils final direct export of Zika was to Puerto Rico, where it began to circulate widely in 2015.

From there, a second study led by researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla suggests that the island nations of the Caribbean became the springboard for Zikas onward travel.

The Caribbean strain jumped northwest, across the Tropic of Cancer, via Zika-infected mosquitoes and people who were traveling aboard cruise ships and planes mainly bound for Miami.

Like tinder that didnt catch immediately, Florida withstood at least four and perhaps as many as 40 small but unsustained ignitions of the Zika virus in 2015. A few local infections would take place, but the density of mosquitoes or humans was too low for an outbreak to pick up steam.

But these repeated sparks eventually ignited a fire. By the early days of 2016, Zika was spreading in Florida. Public health officials would eventually confirm 256 cases of local infection in 2016, all but 15 of them in Miami-Dade County.

It had taken a year, give or take, for the sustained spread of Zika to be detected in Brazil, Honduras and the Caribbean. But U.S. public health authorities were quick to determine that the virus was spreading in Puerto Rico and Florida: in both places, only a few months separated the start of Zikas circulation and the detection of that event.

The three research groups painstakingly collected mosquitoes and human viral samples from across 11 countries and territories. The teams subjected those samples to genetic analysis sometimes right on the spot using field versions of genome sequencers described in a study in Nature Protocols.

Altogether, the researchers analyzed the full or partial genomes of 183 Zika samples. One of them was the earliest known Zika sample collected in the Americas.

Like all viruses, as Zika spread from person to person and from country to country, its genetic blueprint changed in small but discernible ways. The RNA in each sample steadily picked up mutations over time as it gained exposure to new people and the viruses they hosted. (In fact, in a study published last week in Nature, researchers identified a much earlier mutation in the South Pacific version of the Zika virus that appears to have contributed to its rapid spread through the Americas.)

The result of the 183 genetic analyses is a sprawling family tree of Zika viruses all related, but each just a tiny bit different from its predecessors or its progeny.

By carefully recording the dates and locations of the Zika samples collected between 2013 and 2016, the three research teams in effect show when and where Zika virus began circulating in a given country or territory. They looked at mutations in the genetic fine print of the samples and lined them up end to end, allowing them to refine the dates, pedigrees and origins of each.

The family tree allowed them to trace Zikas path as it traveled through the Americas. It provides evidence for the potent effect that international travel, migration and mosquito-control efforts can exert over the spread of a virus.

It also serves as a test bed for tracking the progress of future disease-causing viruses as they encounter dense populations with no resistance to them.

In a comment published alongside the three papers, University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey wrote that the new studies collectively set a new standard for what can be achieved by studying disease outbreaks in tantalizingly close to real time, using rapidly-obtained genome sequences.

But its future, he added, is hardly assured.

Such work is possible mostly through the sustained efforts of a fairly small number of scientists supported by modest grants from a few enlightened funders, Worobey writes. Systematic pathogen surveillance is within our grasp, but is still undervalued and underfunded relative to the magnitude of the threat.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

@LATMelissaHealy

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What Do At-Home DNA Tests Really Tell Us? – FOX40

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FOX40

What Do At-Home DNA Tests Really Tell Us?
FOX40
So, he took all three DNA tests, and we sent them off in the mail. My Heritage asked for Eman to take a swab of his cheeks, while both Ancestry DNA and 23 and Me asked him to fill a test tube with saliva. It took more than six weeks to get all the ...

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Ancient DNA evidence shows hunter-gatherers and farmers were … – Phys.Org

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May 25, 2017 The drawing is a facial reconstruction of the sample Chan. Credit: The authors of the reconstructions are Serrulla y Sann, and the original source is: Serrulla, F., and Sann, M. (2017). Forensic anthropological report of Elba. Cadernos do Laboratorio Xeolxico de Laxe 39, 35-72.

In human history, the transition from hunting and gathering to farming is a significant one. As such, hunter-gatherers and farmers are usually thought about as two entirely different sets of people. But researchers reporting new ancient DNA evidence in Current Biology on May 25 show that in the area we now recognize as Romania, at least, hunter-gatherers and farmers were living side by side, intermixing with each other, and having children.

"We expected some level of mixing between farmers and hunter-gatherers, given the archaeological evidence for contact among these communities," says Michael Hofreiter of University of Potsdam in Germany. "However, we were fascinated by the high levels of integration between the two communities as reconstructed from our ancient DNA data."

The findings add evidence to a longstanding debate about how the Neolithic transition, when people gave up hunting and gathering for farming, actually occurred, the researchers say. In those debates, the question has often been about whether the movement of people or the movement of ideas drove the transition.

Earlier evidence suggested that the Neolithic transition in Western Europe occurred mostly through the movement of people, whereas cultural diffusion played a larger role to the east, in Latvia and Ukraine. The researchers in the new study were interested in Romania because it lies between these two areas, presenting some of the most compelling archaeological evidence for contact between incoming farmers and local hunter-gatherers.

Indeed, the new findings show that the relationship between hunter-gatherers and farmers in the Danube basin can be more nuanced and complex. The movement of people and the spread of culture aren't mutually exclusive ideas, the researchers say, "but merely the ends of a continuum."

The researchers came to this conclusion after recovering four ancient human genomes from Romania spanning a time transect between 8.8 thousand and 5.4 thousand years ago. The researchers also analyzed two Mesolithic (hunter-gatherer) genomes from Spain to provide further context.

The DNA revealed that the Romanian genomes from thousands of years ago had significant ancestry from Western hunter-gatherers. However, they also had a lesser but still sizeable contribution from Anatolian farmers, suggesting multiple admixture events between hunter-gatherers and farmers. An analysis of the bones also showed they ate a varied diet, with a combination of terrestrial and aquatic sources.

"Our study shows that such contacts between hunter-gatherers and farmers went beyond the exchange of food and artefacts," Hofreiter says. "As data from different regions accumulate, we see a gradient across Europe, with increasing mixing of hunter-gatherers and farmers as we go east and north. Whilst we still do not know the drivers of this gradient, we can speculate that, as farmers encountered more challenging climatic conditions, they started interacting more with local hunter-gatherers. These increased contacts, which are also evident in the archaeological record, led to genetic mixing, implying a high level of integration between very different people."

The findings are a reminder that the relationships within and among people in different places and at different times aren't simple. It's often said that farmers moved in and outcompeted hunter-gatherers with little interaction between the two. But the truth is surely much richer and more varied than that. In some places, as the new evidence shows, incoming farmers and local hunter-gatherers interacted and mixed to a great extent. They lived together, despite large cultural differences.

Understanding the reasons for why the interactions between these different people led to such varied outcomes, Hofreiter says, is the next big step. The researchers say they now hope to use ancient DNA evidence to add more chapters to the story as they explore the Neolithic transition as it occurred in other parts of the world, outside of Europe.

Explore further: European hunter-gatherers owned pigs as early as 4600BC

More information: Current Biology, Gonzalez-Fortes and Jones et al.: "Paleogenomic Evidence for Multi-generational Mixing between Neolithic Farmers and Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers in the Lower Danube Basin" http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30559-6 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.05.023

Journal reference: Current Biology

Provided by: Cell Press

European hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600BC, according to new evidence.

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Hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived side-by-side for more than 2,000 years in Central Europe, before the hunter-gatherer communities died out or were absorbed into the farming population.

An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University reports a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Stone-Age humans. A genomic analysis of eleven Stone-Age human remains ...

The beginnings of agriculture changed human history and has fascinated scientists for centuries.

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A new species of a fossil pliosaur (large predatory marine reptile from the 'age of dinosaur') has been found in Russia and profoundly change how we understand the evolution of the group, says an international team of scientists.

People using smartphones are more likely to make rational and unemotional decisions compared to PC users when presented with a moral dilemma on their device, according to a new study from City, University of London.

Middle Stone Age humans in the Porc-Epic cave likely used ochre over at least 4,500 years, according to a study published May 24, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Daniela Rosso from the University of Barcelona, ...

(Phys.org)A trio of researchers with Columbia University has conducted a series of experiments regarding how much effort people are willing to exert in fact-checking news stories. In their paper published in Proceedings ...

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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Thursday Night: Look up too see Space Station – WDSU New Orleans

Elon will likely reveal more details on his Big Mars Colonization Rocket at IAC 2017 Sept 25-29 2017 – Next Big Future

Study Implicates Two Genetic Variants in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Development – Newswise (press release)

Genetic Mutation Studies Help Validate New Strategy for Reducing Lipids, Cholesterol – Newswise (press release)

DNA Heritage Companies Put To The Test With Quadruplets CBS … – CBS Sacramento

Ancestry.com denies exploiting users’ DNA – BBC News – BBC News

DNA (Little Mix album) – Wikipedia

What the DNA of the Zika virus tells scientists about its rapid spread – Los Angeles Times

What Do At-Home DNA Tests Really Tell Us? – FOX40

Ancient DNA evidence shows hunter-gatherers and farmers were … – Phys.Org

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