Confirmed

Oldest cranial, dental and postcranial fossils of early modern European humans confirmed

The human fossil evidence from the Mladec Caves in Moravia, Czech Republic, excavated more than 100 years ago, has been proven for the first time, through modern radiocarbon dating, to be the oldest cranial, dental and postcranial assemblage of early modern humans in Europe. A team of researchers from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, from the University of Vienna in Austria and from t...

Bird samples from Mongolia confirmed as H5N1 avian flu

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has positively identified the pathogenic form of avian flu--H5N1--in samples taken from birds last week in Mongolia by field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). It is the first instance of this viral strain occurring in wild migratory birds with no apparent contact to domestic poultry or waterfowl. Present in Mong...

Genetic link confirmed between Polynesians and indigenous Taiwanese

According to folklore, Polynesians originated from a mythical homeland called Hawaiki. Their origins and the existence of such a place, however, have been the subject of much speculation. In a new study in the premier open access journal PLoS Biology, Jean Trejaut and colleagues now provide the first direct evidence for the common ancestry of Polynesians and indigenous Taiwanese. Genetic t...

'Word-vision' brain area confirmed

Humans have an uncanny ability to skim through text, instantly recognizing words by their shape--even though writing developed only about 6000 years ago--long after humans evolved. Thus, neuroscientists have hotly debated whether an area of the cortex called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is truly a specific and necessary area for recognizing words. Functional MRI scans have shown that...

Confirmed -- deforestation plays critical climate change role

Dr Pep Canadell, from the Global Carbon Project and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, says today in the journal Science that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere. "Deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20 per cent of carbon emissions due to human activities," Dr Canadell says. "This will release an estimated 87 to 130 b...

First confirmed common genetic risk factors for breast cancer

In a paper published online today in the journal Nature, the international team of scientists who conducted the genome-wide association study...