The AlphaGalileo Blog 05/11/2021
Welcome to this month's eNews.
This month we have our Top 5 most read from September, our Editor's choices, and our image of the month.
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Top 5 October
1. Oldest footprints of pre-humans identified in Crete, published by the University of Tübingen, Germany, on 8/10/21
The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen. Their study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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2. Vaccines explained for children in new book 'Maya’s Marvellous Medicine’, published by the Babraham Institute, UK, on 15/10/21
'Maya’s Marvellous Medicine’, the third children’s book by immunologist Prof. Adrian Liston and illustrated by artist Dr Sonia Agüera-Gonzalez launches today. The book sees Maya learn about the cells that make up our immune system and how vaccinations prepare these cells for battle.
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3. L’IRD et le MNHN publient l’ouvrage La nature en partage - Autour du protocole de Nagoya, published by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France, on 11/10/21
L’Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) et le Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) coéditent La nature en partage – Autour du protocole de Nagoya, un des premiers ouvrages de synthèse sur la mise en œuvre de cet accord international majeur pour la gouvernance mondiale de la biodiversité.
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4. Face to face with the prehistoric inhabitants of El Argar, published by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, on 6/10/21
What did the Early Bronze Age men and women of the Argaric culture in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula look like? Researchers at the UAB have analysed the facial features of these individuals based on the digital and biological study of the skulls recovered at the sites of La Almoloya and La Bastida (Murcia), and have obtained images of 40 of their inhabitants. The study, the first to apply this method to such a large group of individuals from the same prehistoric site, is part of a more ambitious project being conducted by the research group on the Argaric society ASOME-UAB, which focuses on kinship relationships in prehistoric times.
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5. New research analyses the evolution the last ten thousand years of the hepatitis B virus, published by Asociación RUVID, Spain, on 8/10/21
A study published in the journal Science traces the evolution of the hepatitis B virus from prehistory to the present, revealing dissemination routes and changes in viral diversity.
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Editor's pick
Living descendant of Sitting Bull confirmed by analysis of DNA from the legendary leader’s hair publised by University of Cambridge on 25/10/2021
A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock. This is the first time ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals. The confirmation was made possible using a new method to analyse family lineages using ancient DNA fragments, developed by a team of scientists led by Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre. The results are published in the journal Science Advances.
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Image caption: Ernie Lapointe, great-grandson of Sitting Bull. Credit: E. Lapointe
Image of the month
How cells keep their nucleus clean: a fundamental discovery published by Research Institute of Molecular Pathology on 21/10/21
Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna have developed a CRISPR-Cas9 screening assay that allows to systematically pinpoint regulators of any gene of interest, including cancer-related genes. Using this approach, they discovered how cells transport their clean-up machinery, the proteasome, into the nucleus to maintain protein balance and get rid of unwanted nuclear proteins. The results of this study are now reported in the journal Nature.
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Image caption: Artist’s interpretation of AKIRIN2’s role in the import of the proteasome into the nucleus. The two ‘fingers’ of AKIRIN2 (in orange) carry the proteasome (light blue) into the nucleus. Credit: IMP