Laboratory Equipment

Humans, Dogs Evolved in Parallel

A team of scientists from China have found that the lengthy and intimate association between dogs and humans has resulted in the genomes of both species evolving in parallel over the past 32,000 years.

To study early dog domestication, a team of researchers led by Guo-Dong Wang and Ya-Ping Zhang of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sequenced the genomes of four grey wolves from across Eurasia, three indigenous dogs from Southwest China, and three representatives of modern dog breeds. Geneticists believe that indigenous dogs of South China represent the first stage of canine domestication – their genomes may thus hold insights into the transition from wolves to ancestral dogs.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/humans-dogs-evolved-parallel

Fungus on Human Skin is Highly Diverse

While humans have harnessed the power of yeast to ferment bread and beer, the function of yeast or other types of fungi that live in and on the human body is not well understood. In the first study of human fungal skin diversity, National Institutes of Health researchers sequenced the DNA of fungi at skin sites of healthy adults to define the normal populations across the skin and to provide a framework for investigating fungal skin conditions.

Human skin surfaces are complex ecosystems for microorganisms, including fungi, bacteria and viruses, which are known collectively as the skin microbiome. Although fungal infections of the skin affect about 29 million people in the U.S., fungi can be slow and hard to grow in laboratories, complicating diagnosis and treatment of even the most common fungal skin conditions, such as toenail infections.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/fungus-human-skin-highly-diverse

Rapid Climate Change Sparked Human Culture

Rapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, sparked surges in cultural innovation in early modern human populations, according to new research.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, was conducted by a team of scientists from Cardiff Univ.’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the Univ. of Barcelona.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/rapid-climate-change-sparked-human-culture

Stem Cells Recovered from Cloned Human Embryos

Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a longstanding goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

A prominent expert calls the work a landmark, but notes that a different, simpler technique now under development may prove more useful.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/stem-cells-recovered-cloned-human-embryos

Tiny Bones Hold Huge Human Evolution Clues

The tiniest bones in the human body – the bones of the middle ear – could provide huge clues about our evolution and the development of modern-day humans, according to a study by a team of researchers that include a Texas A&M Univ. anthropologist.

Darryl de Ruiter, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Binghamton Univ. (the State Univ. of New York) and researchers from Spain and Italy have published their work in the current issue of PNAS.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/tiny-bones-hold-huge-human-evolution-clues

Earliest Evidence of Human Ancestors Hunting, Scavenging

A recent Baylor Univ. research study has shed new light on the diet and food acquisition strategies of some the earliest human ancestors in Africa.

Beginning around two million years ago, early stone tool-making humans, known scientifically as Oldowan hominin, started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures, including an increase in brain and body size, heavier investment in their offspring and significant home-range expansion. Demonstrating how these early humans acquired the extra energy they needed to sustain these shifts has been the subject of much debate among researchers.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/earliest-evidence-human-ancestors-hunting-scavenging

Climate, Not Humans, Caused Megafauna Extinction

Most species of gigantic animals that once roamed Australia had disappeared by the time people arrived, a major review of the available evidence has concluded.

The research challenges the claim that humans were primarily responsible for the demise of the megafauna in a proposed “extinction window” between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, and points the finger instead at climate change.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/climate-not-humans-caused-megafauna-extinction

Possible HIV Cure Looks Promising in Human Trial

Hopes for developing a cure for HIV are rising as trials with 15 HIV patients at Aarhus Univ. Hospital look very promising.

Researchers at Aarhus Univ. and the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus Univ. Hospital are holding their breath right now. In a series of tests on patients, the researchers are currently trying out a completely new method. If everything goes as they hope, this could mean that HIV infection could ultimately be cured.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/possible-hiv-cure-looks-promising-human-trial

Study Explains 90 Percent of Vegetation Changes

In the last 30 years, vegetation has changed significantly throughout the world. Until recently, the extent to which the climate or humankind was responsible remained unclear. However, geographers from the Univ. of Zurich and colleagues from the Netherlands now reveal that over half of these changes are climatological, human-caused or as yet unknown. Human-climate interactions cause over a third, and around 10 percent cannot be explained fully by either the climate or human activity.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/study-explains-90-percent-vegetation-changes

Ancestors Walked with a Mix of Human, Ape

According to a new study, our Australopithecus ancestors may have used different approaches to getting around on two feet. The new findings, co-authored by Boston Univ. researchers Jeremy DeSilva, assistant professor of anthropology, and Kenneth Holt, assistant professor of physical therapy, appear in the latest issue of the journal Science. The paper is one of six published this week in Science that represent the culmination of more than four years of research into the anatomy of Australopithecus sediba (Au. sediba). The two-million-year-old fossils, discovered in Malapa cave in South Africa in 2008, are some of the most complete early human ancestral remains ever discovered.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/ancestors-walked-mix-human-ape

Fusion-Powered Rocket Could Send Humans to Mars

Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs. Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars.
Univ. of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/fusion-powered-rocket-could-send-humans-mars

More Advanced Technology Needed to Demystify the Brain

The scientific tools are not yet available to build a comprehensive map of the activity in the most complicated 3 pounds of material in the world — the human brain, scientists say in a newly published article. It describes the technologies that could be applied and developed for the Brain Activity Mapping (BAM) Project, which aims to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. Published in the journal ACS Nano, the article describes how BAM could bring new understanding of how the brain works and possibly lead to treatments of clinical depression, autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/more-advanced-technology-needed-demystify-brain

Fossils are Evidence of Early Human Inbreeding

Paleoanthropologists from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IVPP), and Washington Univ. in St. Louis, reported a neurocranial abnormality previously undescribed in Pleistocene human fossils, an enlarged parietal foramen (EPF) in the early Late Pleistocene Xujiayao 11 parietal bones from the Xujiayao (Houjiayao) site, in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, suggesting unusual population dynamics, most likely from high levels of inbreeding and local population instability. Researchers published their results in the journal PLOS ONE, and provided a background for understanding populational and cultural dynamics through much of human evolution.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/fossils-are-evidence-early-human-inbreeding

First Early Human Fossil Found in Africa Goes on Display

Just over 90 years ago a discovery was made that started a fascinating journey exploring human evolution in Africa. The Broken Hill skull was the first early human fossil to be found in Africa and evidence suggests it probably represents the species from which we, Homo sapiens, descended.

For the first time ever, the skull goes on public display in the Natural History Museum’s Treasures Cadogan Gallery. The skull was found in the Broken Hill mine in Zambia, in 1921. It belongs to the ancient human species Homo heidelbergensis. The skull belonged to an adult, probably male, and has a massive brow bridge and large face. It is the finest known example of its kind.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/first-early-human-fossil-found-africa-goes-display

Evolution Gave Humans Unique Brain Structures

Humans have at least two functional networks in their cerebral cortex not found in rhesus monkeys. This means that new brain networks were likely added in the course of evolution from primate ancestor to human. These findings, based on an analysis of functional brain scans, were published in a study by neurophysiologist Wim Vanduffel (KU Leuven and Harvard Medical School) in collaboration with a team of Italian and American researchers.

Our ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared or have changed in function. This raises the question, “Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?” Scientists have entertained the idea before but conclusive evidence was lacking. By combining different research methods, they now have a first piece of evidence that could prove that humans have unique cortical brain networks.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/evolution-gave-humans-unique-brain-structures