Ancient DNA Shows Genetic Link between Egypt, Mesopotamia
Researchers sequenced whole genomes from the teeth of a remarkably well-preserved skeleton found in a sealed funeral pot in an Egyptian tomb site dating to between roughly 4,500 and 4,800 years ago.Four-fifths of the genome showed links to North Africa and the region around Egypt. But a fifth of the genome showed links to the area in the Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, known as the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization flourished.
'The finding is highly significant' because it 'is the first direct evidence of what has been hinted at' in prior work, said Daniel Antoine, curator of Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum.
Earlier archeological evidence has shown trade links between Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as similarities in pottery-making techniques and pictorial writing systems. While resemblances in dental structures suggested possible ancestral links, the new study clarifies the genetic ties.
The Nile River is 'likely to have acted as an ancient superhighway, facilitating the movement of not only cultures and ideas, but people,' said Antoine, who was not involved in the study.
The skeleton was found in an Egyptian tomb complex at the archaeological site of Nuwayrat, inside a chamber carved out from a rocky hillside. An analysis of wear and tear on the skeleton — and the presence of arthritis in specific joints — indicates the man was likely in his 60s and may have worked as a potter, said coauthor and bioarchaeologist Joel Irish of Liverpool John Moores University.
The man lived just before or near the start of ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified as one state, leading to a period of relative political stability and cultural innovation — including the construction of the Giza pyramids.
'This is the time that centralized power allowed the formation of ancient Egypt as we know it,' said coauthor Linus Girdland-Flink, a paleogeneticist at the University of Aberdeen.
At approximately the same time, Sumerian city-states took root in Mesopotamia and cuneiform emerged as a writing system.
Researchers said analysis of other ancient DNA samples is needed to obtain a clearer picture of the extent and timing of movements between the two cultural centers.
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The Mainichi
17 hours ago
- The Mainichi
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Japan Today
2 days ago
- Japan Today
Dark series 'The Institute' adaptation gets author Stephen King's thumbs up
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The industrious novelist has lately watched as a wave of adaptations are crafted for theaters or streaming platforms, a list that includes 'The Life of Chuck' and the upcoming 'The Long Walk,' 'The Running Man' and 'It: Welcome to Derry.' It also includes the eight-episode series 'The Institute,' which debuts on MGM+ on Sunday. It's about a secret government facility where kids with special talents — telekinesis and telepathy — are imprisoned and put to dark geopolitical uses. Their bedrooms are faithfully re-created and creepy posters — 'Your Gift Is Important' and 'I Choose to be Happy' — line the halls. Does this small-screen adaptation of his 2019 book get King's approval? 'I'm talking to you which is a pretty good sign,' he says, laughing. He even signed on as executive producer. 'When I write a book, it's a single-person sport and when these people do a TV show or a movie it becomes a team sport. So you expect some changes and, sometimes, man, they're really good.' 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All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Yomiuri Shimbun
5 days ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
U.S. Plans to Begin Breeding Billions of Flies to Fight Pest
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to ramp up the breeding and distribution of adult male flies — sterilizing them with radiation before releasing them — so they can mate ineffectively with females and over time cause the population to die out. It is more effective and environmentally friendly than spraying the pest into oblivion, and it is how the U.S. and other nations north of Panama eradicated the same pest decades ago. Sterile flies from a factory in Panama kept the flies contained there for years, but the pest appeared in southern Mexico late last year. The USDA expects a new screwworm fly factory to be up and running in southern Mexico by July 2026. It plans to open a fly distribution center in southern Texas by the end of the year so that it can import and distribute flies from Panama if necessary. Fly feeds on live flesh Most fly larvae feed on dead flesh, making the New World screwworm fly and its Old World counterpart in Asia and Africa outliers — and for the American beef industry, a serious threat. Females lay their eggs in wounds and, sometimes, exposed mucus. 'A thousand-pound bovine can be dead from this in two weeks,' said Michael Bailey, president elect of the American Veterinary Medicine Association. Veterinarians have effective treatments for infested animals, but an infestation can still be unpleasant — and cripple an animal with pain. Don Hineman, a retired western Kansas rancher, recalled infected cattle as a youngster on his family's farm. 'It smelled nasty,' he said. 'Like rotting meat.' Using the fly's biology against it The New World screwworm fly is a tropical species, unable to survive Midwestern or Great Plains winters, so it was a seasonal scourge. Still, the U.S. and Mexico bred and released more than 94 billion sterile flies from 1962 through 1975 to eradicate the pest, according to the USDA. The numbers need to be large enough that females in the wild can't help but hook up with sterile males for mating. One biological trait gives fly fighters a crucial wing up: Females mate only once in their weekslong adult lives. Why U.S. wants to breed more flies Alarmed about the fly's migration north, the U.S. temporarily closed its southern border in May to imports of live cattle, horses and bison and it won't be fully open again at least until mid-September. But female flies can lay their eggs in wounds on any warm-blooded animal, and that includes humans. Decades ago, the U.S. had fly factories in Florida and Texas, but they closed as the pest was eradicated. The Panama fly factory can breed up to 117 million a week, but the USDA wants the capacity to breed at least 400 million a week. It plans to spend $8.5 million on the Texas site and $21 million to convert a facility in southern Mexico for breeding sterile fruit flies into one for screwworm flies. Raising hundreds of millions of flies In one sense, raising a large colony of flies is relatively easy, said Cassandra Olds, an assistant professor of entomology at Kansas State University. But, she added, 'You've got to give the female the cues that she needs to lay her eggs, and then the larvae have to have enough nutrients.' Fly factories once fed larvae horse meat and honey and then moved to a mix of dried eggs and either honey or molasses, according to past USDA research. Later, the Panama factory used a mix that included egg powder and red blood cells and plasma from cattle. In the wild, larvae ready for the equivalent of a butterfly's cocoon stage drop off their hosts and onto the ground, burrow just below the surface and grow to adulthood inside a protective casing making them resemble a dark brown Tic Tac mint. In the Panama factory, workers drop them into trays of sawdust. Security is an issue. Sonja Swiger, an entomologist with Texas A&M University's Extension Service, said a breeding facility must prevent any fertile adults kept for breeding stock from escaping. How to drop flies from airplane Dropping flies from the air can be dangerous. Last month, a plane freeing sterile flies crashed near Mexico's border with Guatemala, killing three people. In test runs in the 1950s, according to the USDA, scientists put the flies in paper cups and then dropped the cups out of planes using special chutes. Later, they loaded them into boxes with a machine known as a 'Whiz Packer.' The method is still much the same: Light planes with crates of flies drop those crates. Burgess called the development of sterile fly breeding and distribution in the 1950s and 1960s one of the USDA's 'crowning achievements.' Some agriculture officials argue now that new factories shouldn't be shuttered after another successful fight. 'Something we think we have complete control over — and we have declared a triumph and victory over — can always rear its ugly head again,' Burgess said. Mexico to open sterile fly plant MEXICO CITY (Reuters) — Mexico's government said on Monday that it has started to build a $51 million facility in the country's south as part of an effort to combat screwworm, a pest that has disrupted Mexican exports of cattle to the United States. Mexico's agriculture ministry said in a statement that the plant, a joint project with the U.S., will produce 100 million sterile screwworm flies per week once completed in the first half of 2026.
