Ants Lead the Way on Earthquake Prediction

Ants Lead the Way on Earthquake Prediction - Ants with the world's worst taste in real estate seem to sense earthquakes before they strike, according to research presented today (April 11) at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna.

Active faults, fractures where the Earth violently ruptures in earthquakes, are the preferred housing site for red wood ants in Germany. Researcher Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany has counted more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany's faults, like candy drops on a conveyor belt.

Red wood ant mounds on an earthquake fault in Germany.

For three years, Berberich and her colleagues tracked the ants 24-7 with video cameras, using special software to catalog behavioral changes. There were 10 earthquakes between magnitude 2.0 and 3.2 during the study period, 2009 to 2012, and many smaller temblors. The ants only changed behavior for quakes larger than magnitude 2.0, which also happens to be the smallest quakes that humans can feel.

During the day, ants busily went about their daily activity, and at night the colony rested inside the mound, mirroring human diurnal patterns, Berberich said at a news conference today. But before an earthquake, the ants were awake throughout the night, outside their mound, vulnerable to predators, the researchers found. Normal ant behavior didn't resume until a day after the earthquake, Berberich said.

So how do ants know an earthquake is coming? Berberich suspects the insects pick up changing gas emissions or local shifts in the Earth's magnetic field.

"Red wood ants have chemoreceptors for carbon dioxide gradients and magnetoreceptors for electromagnetic fields," she said. "We're not sure why or how they react to the possible stimuli, but we're planning on going to a more tectonically active region and see if ants react to larger earthquakes," Berberich added. ( LiveScience.com )

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Humanity's Closest Ancestor Was Pigeon-Toed, Research Reveals

Humanity's Closest Ancestor Was Pigeon-Toed, Research Reveals - The most complete investigation of the anatomy of what may be the immediate ancestor of the human lineage is now shedding light on secrets about how it might have behaved, researchers say. 

For instance, the human ancestors may have moved in an entirely new way, with a somewhat pigeon-toed gait with a twisty trunk, the researchers added. 

Thefirst specimens of the extinct species Australopithecus sediba were accidentally discoveredby the 9-year-old son of a scientist in 2008, in an area in South Africa named the Cradle of Humankind, one of the richest fossil sites in Africa. Australopithecus means "southern ape," while sedibameans "fountain" in Sotho, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, due to how scientists hint the human lineage might spring from this species. 

Au. sedibalived nearly 2 million years ago, about the time when scientists think the human lineage Homooriginated. It possessed a bizarre jumble of human and more apelike traits, perhaps revealing this might be the species from which humans' branch of the family tree originated. 

"These skeletons are just interesting, wonderful blends of characteristics," researcher Steven Churchill, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University, told LiveScience. 

The findings, detailed in six papers in the April 12 issue of the journal Science, firm up the idea that Au. sediba was one of humanity's closest ancestors. 

Here a composite reconstruction of Au. sediba, which may be humanity's closest relative. The reconstruction isbased on material from a younger male skeleton (MH1), a female skeleton (MH2) and an adult (MH4), and based upon the research

Who was Au. sediba? 

Now scientists have probed more deeply into the anatomy of the remarkably well-preserved skeletons of Au. sediba. These include a younger male skeleton, commonly referred to as MH1, and a female skeleton, known as MH2, as well as the shinbone of an adult known as MH4. This is the most comprehensive exam yet of the anatomy of an early member of the hominins — the group that includes modern and extinct human species and their direct ancestors. 

Au. sediba possessed long, apelike arms, suggesting it could still climb and possibly hang from trees, perhaps more so than any other australopith — the primates that preceded Homo, and the first to walk bipedally on two feet. 

"Its scapula or shoulder blade is most similar in shape to that of orangutans, the most arboreal or tree-dwelling of all the apes," Churchill said. "This suggests climbing was still an important part of its behavior and ecology." 

However, Au. sediba may have also possessed fingers one might expect of a toolmaker and tool user — ones potentially suited for precision grasping. 

"They're still capable of very powerful grips, which is what you'd need if you were climbing or suspended under a branch," Churchill said. "It looks like a hand good for both tools and climbing." 

"For now, however, we don't have any indications of tool use at the site, no examples of tools," researcher Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told LiveScience. 

Odd walkers? 

The legs of Au. sediba suggest it moved in an entirely unique way. For instance, its small heel resembled that of a chimp's, hinting it probably walked with an inward rotation of the knee and hip, with its feet slightly twisted. This primitive method of walking might have been a compromise between tree-climbing and upright walking. 

"The implications of this study are that multiple forms of bipedalism were once practiced by our early hominin ancestors," Berger said. "Different species of australopiths utilized their anatomy in different ways — some climbed trees, some walked on the ground, and some did both." 

The extinct species' teeth are a combination of primitive and humanlike traits. Their features suggest Au. sediba was a close relative of another southern African australopith known as Australopithecus africanus. The researchers say both these species appear more closely related to humans than australopiths from east Africa such as Australopithecus afarensis, most famed for the hominid Lucy and at one time thought to be the closest relative of humans. 

"Our research on teeth can't definitively settle if either sediba or africanus is more closely related to humans than the other species," said researcher Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg at Ohio State University. "But our findings do suggest that both are closely related to each other and are more closely related to humans than afarensis." 

Au. sedibastood a little more than 4 feet high (1.2 meters). Analysis of its spine revealed it had a humanlike curvature of the lower back. However, its lower back was longer and more flexible than modern humans, and more like primitive, extinct members of Homo. 

"We think this feature of its lower trunk may have helped with its locomotion," Berger said. "Humans twist their trunk when we walk, a movement we counter by moving our arms. Maybe sediba was twisting its trunk as well when it moved." 

Svelte-chested ancestor 

The remains of the upper rib cage or thorax of Au. sediba suggest it was narrow and apelike, different from the broad, cylindrical chest seen in humans. 

"The broad thorax we have is unique to humans — the only mammal that doesn't have narrowing at the shoulders is humans," Berger said. "We can lift our thorax to breathe, change the capacity for respiration, which is one of the main reasons humans are good long-distance runners. Chimpanzees don't have that." 

However, the less well-preserved lower rib cage fossils were more humanlike. This might have helped accommodate its strange form of walking just as its odd lower back did. 

"Everywhere we look in these skeletons, from the jaws on down to the feet, we see evidence of the transition from australopith to Homo; everywhere we see evidence of evolution," said researcher Darryl de Ruiter at Texas A&M University. 

All in all, these findings provide support that Au. sediba is one of the closest relatives to early humans. 

"We need to find more sediba remains to help fill in the missing pieces of this evolutionary puzzle," Guatelli-Steinberg said. 

Discoveries such as Au. sediba "demonstrate the need for further African-based exploration in the rich fossil fields of southern Africa, and additionally demonstrate the tremendous promise of the paleosciences on the continent," Berger said. ( LiveScience.com )

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Mysteriously Shrinking Proton Continues to Puzzle Physicists

Mysteriously Shrinking Proton Continues to Puzzle Physicists — The size of a proton, long thought to be well-understood, may remain a mystery for a while longer, according to physicists. — Speaking today (April 13) at the April meeting of the American Physical Society, researchers said they need more data to understand why new measurements of proton size don't match old ones. 

"The discrepancy is rather severe," said Randolf Pohl, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. The question, Pohl and his colleagues said, is whether the explanation is a boring one — someone messed up the measurements — or something that will generate new physics theories 

The incredible shrinking proton 

The proton is a positively charged particle in the nucleus of atoms, the building blocks of everything. Years of measurements pegged the proton at 0.8768 femtometers in radius (a femtometer is a millionth of a billionth of a meter). 

But a new method used in 2009 found a different measurement: 0.84087 femtometers, a 4 percent difference in radius. 

The previous measurements had used electrons, negatively charged particles that circle the nucleus in a cloud, to determine proton radius. To make the measurement with electrons, researchers can do one of two things. First, they can fire electrons at protons to measure how the electrons are deflected. This electron-scattering method provides insight into the size of the positively charged proton. 

An alternative is to try to make the electron move. Electrons zing around the nucleus of an atom, where protons reside, at different levels called orbitals. They can jump from orbital to orbital by increasing or decreasing their energy, which electrons do by losing or gaining an elementary particle of light called a photon. The amount of energy it takes to budge an electron from orbital to orbital tells physicists how much pull the proton has, and thus the proton's size. 

Pohl and his colleagues didn't use electrons at all in their measurements of the proton. Instead, they turned to another negatively charged particle called the muon. The muon is 200 times heavier than an electron, so it orbits the proton 200 times closer. This heft makes it easier for scientists to predict which orbital a muon resides in and thus a much more sensitive measure of proton size. 

"The muon is closer to the proton and it has a better view," Pohl said. 

Possible explanations 

These sensitive muon measurements are the ones that gave the smaller-than-expected result for the proton radius, a totally unexpected discovery, Pohl said. Now, physicists are racing to explain the discrepancies. 

One possibility is that the measurements are simply wrong. Pohl said this "boring explanation" is the most probable, but not all physicists agree. 

"I would say it's not the experimental side," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Jan Bernauer. 

The electron-based measurements have been repeated many times and are well-understood, Bernauer said, and muon experiments have the advantage that if they're done wrong, they don't provide results at all. 

If experimental error turns out not to be the culprit, there may be some calculation issue, "so we actually know everything that goes on but we are just not calculating it quite right," Bernauer told reporters. 

Most exciting of all, the discrepancy could reveal some new physics not explained by the dominant physics theory, the Standard Model. Perhaps there is something unknown about how muons and electrons interact with other particles, said John Arrington, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. 

One possibility is that photons aren't the only particles that carry forces between particles — perhaps an unknown particle is in the mix, causing the proton-measurement discrepancies. 

Next steps 

To find out what's going on, physicists are launching a new set of experiments across multiple laboratories. One major line of research involves testing electron-scattering experiments to be sure they've been done correctly and that all the facets are understood, Arrington said. 

Another goal is to repeat the scattering experiments, but instead of shooting electrons at protons they'll shoot muons at protons. This project, the Muon Scattering Experiment, or MUSE, is set to take place at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The facilities there will allow researchers to simultaneously measure electron- and muon-scattering in one experiment. 

"The hope is that on the electron-scattering side, we'll have double-checked all the things that are challenging in these measurements," Arrington said. "If we still have this discrepancy, we'll be able to fill in this last box and look at the muon-scattering and see, independent of how you make the measurement, do electrons and muons give you something different?" 

The plan is to start collecting data in that experiment in 2015 or 2016, Arrington said, meaning the size of the proton will remain in limbo for a little longer. 

"It's not easy," Arrington said. "We hope to do it in a little less than 10 years, but maybe we're being optimistic." ( LiveScience.com )

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Two million-year-old creature had mix of ape, human traits

Two million-year-old creature had mix of ape, human traits - A 2 million-year-old ancestor of man had a mixture of ape and human-like features that allowed it to hike vast distances on two legs with as much ease as it could scurry up trees, according to research published on Friday. 

Discovered in cave near Johannesburg in 2008, the fossils of a species named "Australopithecus sediba" have given researchers clues about the evolution of man and which traits in our ancestors fell by the wayside. 

Standing about 1.3 metres (4 ft) tall, sediba had a narrow rib cage similar to apes but a flexible spine more similar to that of a human. Its long arms and powerful torso helped in climbing, according to the research published in the journal Science. 

Sediba's small heel resembled a chimpanzee's and it walked with an inward rotation of the knee and hip on slightly twisted feet with a flat-footed gait that would have helped it cover ground, the researchers said. 

"It is the perfect compromise of something that has the need to walk on the ground efficiently for long distances. At the same time, it is a very capable climber," said Lee Berger, project leader at the Wits Evolutionary Studies Institute in South Africa. 

The researchers plan further studies to see how these fossils of early human relatives known as hominin compare to other remains, to help put together the pieces of evolution. 

"We have more complete specimens of fossils than for any other early hominin species that has ever been discovered. What this means is that we can make assessments of the anatomy and behaviour of this species with a great deal of confidence," Berger told Reuters. ( Reuters )

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Everything you’ve been told about this exotic, royal, endangered species is wrong

Why White Tigers Should Go Extinct - Everything you’ve been told about this exotic, royal, endangered species is wrong.

A white tiger is a striking creature. Tigers are always impressive animals, but when you take away the orange, the result is a big cat that looks like a phantom out of a dream. They seem almost magical, and yet I firmly believe that the world would be a better place if there was not a single white tiger in it.

There are only about 4,000 tigers, at most, remaining in the wild. Yet there are probably tens of thousands of captive tigers around the world (there is no official census). This would appear to make a compelling case for the existence of zoos and private collections. If tigers can survive and breed well in captivity, then perhaps more can be introduced to the wild when safe habitat becomes available. Yet that system isn’t working the way we think it does. A huge number of the captive tigers are hybrids of various subspecies and are so inbred that they will never be suitable for reintroduction to the wild. No tigers are more emblematic of this problem than white tigers.

A white tiger from the Cincinnati Zoo.

I recently asked friends on Facebook to write down their thoughts about white tigers without searching for any new information. Some very intelligent people were under the impression that white tigers are a variety of Siberian tiger, camouflaged for a snowy climate. Others applauded zoos with white tigers for supporting conservation of white tigers while lamenting a lag in reintroduction efforts. Only one out of 27 respondents knew that white tigers are not a subspecies at all but rather the result of a mutant gene that has been artificially selected through massive inbreeding to produce oddball animals for human entertainment.

This level of misinformation should not come as a surprise. Many of the venues that display white tigers have a long history of shading the truth about their mutants. The Cincinnati Zoo, an otherwise respectable institution, labels their white tigers as a “species at risk!” Nowhere on the zoo’s website or at its tiger enclosures does it point out that this species at risk is in fact an ecologically useless hybrid of Bengal and Siberian strains, inbred at the zoo’s own facility for big money. The Cincinnati Zoo repeatedly bred closely related animals over the past few decades to produce more of the white tigers, which they sold for around $60,000 each.

One of the Cincinnati Zoo’s biggest sales was to the illusionists Siegfried and Roy. The Vegas duo bought three white tigers from the zoo in the early 1980s (along with stock from other sources) and quickly set up their own breeding program. Incorporating the white tigers into their act, Siegfried and Roy introduced the breed to millions of Americans. They referred to the cats as “royal white tigers” and, out of what was probably a good intention, gave the public the impression that this was an endangered species that they were helping to protect. Their famous Las Vegas show ended in 2003 when Roy Horn was mauled on stage in front of a horrified audience by one of his own white tigers. To date, Siegfried and Roy continue to claim on their website that their white tiger breeding program is part of a conservation effort aimed at saving “an endangered species.”

White tigers are white because they have two copies of an extremely rare recessive gene found in Bengal tigers (the gene has never been seen among pure Siberians or other subspecies). A very few white tigers were seen in the wild in the early 20th century. On the face of it, being a white object in the Bengal tigers’ tropical habitat of India and Southeast Asia can’t be good for a predator that needs to be camouflaged.

Other, more subtle problems that go along with the white coat would also prevent white tigers from ever becoming established as a wild population. The mutation (which is not albinism—white tigers can still produce melanin) also causes serious defects. White tigers in captivity tend to have problems with the way that their brains control their eyes and process visual stimulation. The animals are often cross-eyed in one or both eyes, bump into objects, and have trouble understanding spatial relationships when they are young. Animals with defects like these couldn’t survive for long in the wild, even though they have long lives in captivity. Other disorders, such as kidney problems, club feet, and shortened tendons, come from the severe inbreeding required to keep this recessive gene around.

Not all of the cubs produced in white tiger breeding schemes are white. Inbred, hybridized tiger cubs with an assortment of health problems aren’t good for much of anything except roadside attractions. Some are kept in hopes that they carry a copy of the white tiger gene that could be expressed in offspring. Carole Baskin, director of Big Cat Rescue, has taken in some breeding-project duds, including a cross-eyed white tiger born without an upper lip.

Every white tiger in a zoo is occupying an enclosure and a budget for food and veterinary care that could be used as part of a legitimate breeding program to protect the genetic diversity of endangered subspecies of tigers. There are fewer than 700 Sumatran tigers left on the planet, in captivity or in the wild. The Siberian tiger numbers no more than 1,000, at best. The survival of both subspecies is in jeopardy due to both habitat loss and a looming genetic bottleneck. We could safeguard the genetic diversity of both types of tigers with the cooperation of zoos and perhaps maintain them in captivity until the political issues that threaten their habitat can be alleviated. Some zoos, such as the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the Minnesota Zoo, do this now as part of a broad species-protection plan. But every zoo that devotes an enclosure to white tigers under the cover of a lie about conservation represents one more place where a legitimately endangered tiger could be kept.

In 2011, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums banned member zoos from breeding white tigers, lions, and cheetahs . This ban should prevent top-tier zoos from continuing to breed white tigers, and the Cincinnati Zoo has recently stopped selling white tigers. But it doesn’t prevent member zoos from continuing to display the animals. And as long as there is demand, those top-tier zoos may still obtain white tigers from other sources. Meanwhile, the white-washing of white tigers by major institutions helps maintain not only ticket revenue from a misled public but also misguided support for the rescue of a nonexistent endangered species.

As William Conway, former director of the New York Zoological Association put it many years ago, "White tigers are freaks. It's not the role of a zoo to show two headed calves and white tigers."

A white tiger that has already been born does not have a vote in the matter and cannot apologize for existing. Humanity has a collective responsibility to care for the two-headed calves and white tigers that we create for our own entertainment, but do we really need to be creating more of the genetic disasters that pull resources away from truly endangered species? There is no good reason to breed another white tiger. We can choose to keep every remaining white tiger in comfortable isolation. Tigers are solitary in the wild (unlike lions, which are social animals that normally live in prides). They do not need the company of other tigers in order to lead happy lives either in the wild or in captivity. We can choose a future in which white tigers disappear into memory and hopefully one in which truly endangered subspecies of tigers maintain enough genetic diversity to be successfully reintroduced into a wild that can sustain them. ( slate.com )

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The Strangest Non-Stories of 2012

The Strangest Non-Stories of 2012 - A lot of things happened in 2012, including scientific breakthroughs, a presidential re-election, and a tragic school shooting. But a lot of things didn't happen this past year.

We realize it's a little strange to discuss things that never occurred — after all, countless things didn't happen in 2012, from an asteroid hitting Earth, to Justin Bieber marrying a supermodel, to Abraham Lincoln climbing out of his grave to praise Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" as being more historically accurate than "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

But there were a handful of stories that made the news, often with a splash, promising big news, and turned out to be non-stories, non-events. Here are a few.

Eagle Snatches Baby in Canadian Park

It was a bizarre, terrifying sight seen by millions of people: A large bird videotaped in the skies above a Canadian park suddenly swooping down and snatching a baby. The bird drops the child a few seconds later, flying away and leaving shocked bystanders. A day after the video went viral, students at an animation school, Centre NAD, admitted that they had created the hoaxed video. A statement issued by the school credited (or blamed) three of its students and explained, "both the eagle and the kid were created in 3D animation and integrated in to the film afterwards." As interesting — and scary — as the event was, it turned out to be a non-story.

Mayan Apocalypse

According to many, Dec. 21, 2012, was to be the end of times. Or the beginning of the best of times, depending on who you talked to. 2012-inspired folks tended to fall into one of two categories: The gloom-and-doomers expected global cataclysm involving death, fire, planetary collapse, pole shifting, and other unspecified natural (or even supernatural) disasters. The second kind were more optimistic, expecting Dec. 21 to usher in a new age of cosmic peace, harmony, and global enlightenment. Scholars patiently explained that despite dramatic claims to the contrary, the Mayans didn't actually hold much significance for the date, and they certainly didn't think the world would end on that date. Their calendar did not, as many assumed, "end" on that day; it was simply the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

Much of the hype and concern over the date originated not from ancient nor modern Mayas, but instead New Agers. Neither doomsday nor world peace broke out, leaving some people relieved, others confused, and many amused.

Bigfoot Proven Through DNA

This was also to be the year that genetic testing confirmed the existence of Bigfoot. According to a press release issued by a company called DNA Diagnostics detailing research by a Texas veterinarian, "A team of scientists ... confirms the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called 'Bigfoot' or 'Sasquatch,' living in North America," the release reads.

Not only that, but Bigfoot is a half-human hybrid that had sex with human women approximately 15,000 years ago — or so the theory goes. If it all sounds a little dubious, it should: there was no evidence offered at all. The evidence, which has allegedly taken five years to collect and analyze, has yet to be published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Until and unless scientists are allowed to examine the evidence, Bigfoot DNA will remain a non-story.

UFOs Invade Denver

In November, an unusual video of mysterious dark objects moving very quickly and erratically over the skies of Denver, Colo., caused a national stir. An anonymous UFO buff showed KDVR Fox News reporter Heidi Hemmat home videos he had taken from an open field during the past summer of "strange objects ... nobody can explain."

The UFOs, it was claimed, seemed to be taking off and flying over the Mile High City at around Noon on many different occasions. The TV report featured an aviation expert named Steve Cowell who stated categorically that in his opinion the objects he saw in the video were not airplanes, helicopters, nor birds. Many people favored the flying saucer theory, though none were able to explain why no one in Denver had noticed the extraterrestrial spacecraft that repeatedly flew over their city at midday. Skeptics noted that the objects caught on film moved a lot like insects flying in the air, and that the cameraman probably simply recorded bugs. With no further evidence of aliens, the buzz about the Denver UFO finally faded away.

Denver wasn't the only city to have its skies lit up with alleged UFOs. A single week in December saw strange illuminated objects hovering in the sky above San Francisco and Brooklyn, N.Y. The dancing lights, it seems, were likely the usual UFO fare: some sort of floating object with a light. "It looks to me like it could have been balloons, carrying lights," Bing Quock, assistant director of the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences, told CBS San Francisco, of the San Francisco lights. Another idea: Chinese floating lanterns, which have spurred at least one other, now-debunked, UFO sighting.

A foursome of lights above Lebanon, Mo., in May, shown in a shaky night-vision video, also sparked a UFO report. While the videographer Jim Barnhill was sure the sight was of extraterrestrial origin, it seemed to have all the makings of an Earthly aircraft: blinking strobe lights characteristic of known aircraft; and a flight altitude, pattern and speed characteristic of known aircraft.

It would have been nice if Bigfoot had been proven or aliens had made their presence known (and not nice if an eagle had snatched a baby or the world ended). But there's always next year... ( LiveScience.com )

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Humans are losing intelligence

Humans are losing intelligence - Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent? - Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study - The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

"The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford University, in a statement.

Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.

The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts, humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.

Life or death situations

Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger. Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.

And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.

But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.

And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the paper argues.

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal article.

Intelligence genes

Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.

The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care, better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.

But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead, removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse population with different types of smarts, he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation." ( LiveScience.com )

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Scientists to unveil proof of ‘God particle’

Scientists to unveil proof of ‘God particle’ - This is as big as the, well, big bang theory: Scientists working at the world's largest atom smasher say they have enough evidence of the long-sought-after Higgs boson.

To the layman, the Higgs boson is the "God particle" and a key puzzle piece in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe. Physicists around the globe—and perhaps elsewhere, given the size of the universe—have invested billions of dollars in research and have been hunting for the Higgs boson for decades.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) are expected to announce Wednesday that they have proof of its existence, reports The Associated Press.

The Higgs boson appeared 13.7 billion years ago in the chaos of the Big Bang and turned the flying debris into galaxies, stars and planets.

Its formal discovery, according to a broad scientific consensus, would be the greatest advance in knowledge of the universe in decades and a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed, according to the AP.

Rutgers University physicist Matt Strassler told Reuters that without the particle, "nothing like human beings, or the earth we live on, could exist."

Physicist Joseph Lykken of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago explained in an interview with National Public Radio the difficulty for physicists in tracking down Higgs boson.

"We think the Higgs boson is a manifestation of the fact that the universe is filled with a force that we haven't been able to detect yet that gives other particles mass," Lykken told NPR. "It exists for a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, or something like that, and then falls apart into other particles."

Thus, scientists are in a bit of a quagmire, according to the AP. While they appear to have enough evidence to report the existence of the "God particle," they still hedge on whether to report "a discovery." It's a fine line, indeed, but one that scientists will likely continue to debate.

"I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, 'It looks like a discovery,'" British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King's College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s, told The Associated Press. "We've discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs."

Oh, those wacky scientists. ( The Lookout )

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Proof of 'God particle' found

Proof of 'God particle' found — Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have gathered enough evidence to show that the long-sought "God particle" answering fundamental questions about the universe almost certainly does exist.

But after decades of work and billions of dollars spent, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, aren't quite ready to say they've "discovered" the particle.

FILE - In this May 20, 2011 file photo, a physicist explains the ATLAS experiment on a board at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland. The illustration shows what the long-presumed Higgs boson particle is thought to look like. Scientists at CERN plan to make an announcement on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 about their hunt for the elusive sub-atomic particle. Physicists have said previously they are increasingly confident that they are closing in on it based on hints at its existence hidden away in reams of data. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

Instead, experts familiar with the research at CERN's vast complex on the Swiss-French border say that the massive data they have obtained will essentially show the footprint of the key particle known as the Higgs boson — all but proving it exists — but doesn't allow them to say it has actually been glimpsed.

It appears to be a fine distinction.

Senior CERN scientists say that the two independent teams of physicists who plan to present their work at CERN's vast complex on the Swiss-French border on July 4 are about as close as you can get to a discovery without actually calling it one.

"I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, 'It looks like a discovery,'" British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King's College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s, told The Associated Press. "We've discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs."

CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to help them understand suspected phenomena such as dark matter, antimatter and ultimately the creation of the universe billions of years ago, which many theorize occurred as a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.

For particle physicists, finding the Higgs boson is a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed. Each of the two teams known as ATLAS and CMS involve thousands of people working independently from one another, to ensure accuracy.

Rob Roser, who leads the search for the Higgs boson at the Fermilab in Chicago, said: "Particle physicists have a very high standard for what it takes to be a discovery," and he thinks it is a hair's breadth away.

Rosen compared the results that scientists are preparing to announce Wednesday to finding the fossilized imprint of a dinosaur: "You see the footprints and the shadow of the object, but you don't actually see it."

Though an impenetrable concept to many, the Higgs boson has until now been just that — a concept intended to explain a riddle: How were the subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons and neutrons, themselves formed? What gives them their mass?

The answer came in a theory first proposed by physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s. It envisioned an energy field where particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.

The idea is that other particles attract Higgs bosons and the more they attract, the bigger their mass will be. Some liken the effect to a ubiquitous Higgs snowfield that affects other particles traveling through it depending on whether they are wearing, metaphorically speaking, skis, snowshoes or just shoes.

Officially, CERN is presenting its evidence at a physics conference in Australia this week, but plans to accompany the announcement with meetings in Geneva. The two teams, ATLAS and CMS, then plan to publicly unveil more data on the Higgs boson at physics meetings in October and December.

Scientists with access to the new CERN data say it shows with a high degree of certainty that the Higgs boson may already have been glimpsed, and that by unofficially combining the separate results from ATLAS and CMS it can be argued that a discovery is near at hand. Ellis says at least one physicist-blogger has done just that in a credible way.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said Monday, however, that he would be "very cautious" about unofficial combinations of ATLAS and CMS data. "Combining the data from two experiments is a complex task, which is why it takes time, and why no combination will be presented on Wednesday," he told AP.

But if the calculations are indeed correct, said John Guinon, a longtime physics professor at the University of California at Davis and author of the book "The Higgs Hunter's Guide," then it is fair to say that "in some sense we have reached the mountaintop."

Sean M. Carroll, a California Institute of Technology physicist flying to Geneva for the July 4th announcement, said that if both ATLAS and CMS have independently reached these high thresholds on the Higgs boson, then "only the most curmudgeonly will not believe that they have found it." ( Associated Press )

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Spanish cave paintings shown as oldest in world

Spanish cave paintings shown as oldest in world — New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man.

Some scientists say they might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, but others disagree.

Testing the coating of paintings in 11 Spanish caves, researchers found that one is at least 40,800 years old, which is at least 15,000 years older than previously thought. That makes them older than the more famous French cave paintings by thousands of years.

This undated handout photo provided by pedro suara/aaas shows the 'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave showing red disks and hand stencils made by blowing or spitting paint onto the wall. A date from a disk shows the painting to be older than 40,800 years making it the oldest known cave art in Europe. The bison overlay the hands and are therefore painted later. New tests show that crude Spanish cave paintings of a red sphere and handprints are the oldest in the world, so ancient they may not have been by modern man. They might have even been made by the much-maligned Neanderthals, some scientists suggest but others disagree. (AP Photo/Pedro Saura, AAAS)

Scientists dated the Spanish cave paintings by measuring the decay of uranium atoms, instead of traditional carbon-dating, according to a report released Thursday by the journal Science. The paintings were first discovered in the 1870s.

The oldest of the paintings is a red sphere from a cave called El Castillo. About 25 outlined handprints in another cave are at least 37,300 years old. Slightly younger paintings include horses.

Cave paintings are "one of the most exquisite examples of human symbolic behavior," said study co-author Joao Zilhao, an anthropologist at the University of Barcelona. "And that, that's what makes us human."

There is older sculpture and other portable art. Before the latest test, the oldest known cave paintings were those France's Chauvet cave, considered between 32,000 and 37,000 years old.

What makes the dating of the Spanish cave paintings important is that it's around the time when modern humans first came into Europe from Africa.

Study authors say they could have been from modern man decorating their new digs or they could have been the working of the long-time former tenant of Europe: the Neanderthal. Scientists said Neanderthals were in Europe from about 250,000 years ago until about 35,000 years ago. Modern humans arrived in Europe about 41,000 to 45,000 years ago — with some claims they moved in even earlier — and replaced Neanderthals.

"There is a strong chance that these results imply Neanderthal authorship," Zilhao said. "But I will not say we have proven it because we haven't."

In a telephone press conference, Zilhao said Neanderthals recently have gotten "bad press" over their abilities. They decorated their tools and bodies. So, he said, they could have painted caves.

But there's a debate in the scientific community about Neanderthals. Other anthropologists say Zilhao is in a minority of researchers who believe in more complex abilities of Neanderthals.

Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and John Shea at Long Island's Stony Brook University said the dating work in the Science paper is compelling and important, but they didn't quite buy the theory that Neanderthals could have been the artists.

"There is no clear evidence of paintings associated with Neanderthal tools or fossils, so any such evidence would be surprising," Delson said. He said around 41,000 years ago Neanderthals were already moving south in Europe, away from modern man and these caves.

Shea said it is more likely that modern humans were making such paintings in Africa even earlier, but the works didn't survive because of the different geology on the continent.

"The people who came in to Europe were very much like us. They used art, they used symbols," Shea said. "They were not like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble." ( Associated Press )

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DNA study seeks origin of Appalachia's Melungeons

DNA study seeks origin of Appalachia's Melungeons — For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.

Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking. The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.

And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn't sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry.

"There were a whole lot of people upset by this study," lead researcher Roberta Estes said. "They just knew they were Portuguese, or Native American."

Beginning in the early 1800s, or possibly before, the term Melungeon (meh-LUN'-jun) was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border. But it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.

In recent decades, interest in the origin of the Melungeons has risen dramatically with advances both in DNA research and in the advent of Internet resources that allow individuals to trace their ancestry without digging through dusty archives.

G. Reginald Daniel, a sociologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara who's spent more than 30 years examining multiracial people in the U.S. and wasn't part of this research, said the study is more evidence that race-mixing in the U.S. isn't a new phenomenon.

"All of us are multiracial," he said. "It is recapturing a more authentic U.S. history."

Estes and her fellow researchers theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery.

They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from Virginia through the Carolinas before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee.

Claims of Portuguese ancestry likely were a ruse they used in order to remain free and retain other privileges that came with being considered white, according to the study's authors.

The study quotes from an 1874 court case in Tennessee in which a Melungeon woman's inheritance was challenged. If Martha Simmerman were found to have African blood, she would lose the inheritance.

Her attorney, Lewis Shepherd, argued successfully that the Simmerman's family was descended from ancient Phoenicians who eventually migrated to Portugal and then to North America.

Writing about his argument in a memoir published years later, Shepherd stated, "Our Southern high-bred people will never tolerate on equal terms any person who is even remotely tainted with negro blood, but they do not make the same objection to other brown or dark-skinned people, like the Spanish, the Cubans, the Italians, etc."

In another lawsuit in 1855, Jacob Perkins, who is described as "an East Tennessean of a Melungeon family," sued a man who had accused him of having "negro blood."

In a note to his attorney, Perkins wrote why he felt the accusation was damaging. Writing in the era of slavery ahead of the Civil War, Perkins noted the racial discrimination of the age: "1st the words imply that we are liable to be indicted (equals) liable to be whipped (equals) liable to be fined ... "

Later generations came to believe some of the tales their ancestors wove out of necessity.

Jack Goins, who has researched Melungeon history for about 40 years and was the driving force behind the DNA study, said his distant relatives were listed as Portuguese on an 1880 census. Yet he was taken aback when he first had his DNA tested around 2000. Swabs taken from his cheeks collected the genetic material from saliva or skin cells and the sample was sent to a laboratory for identification.

"It surprised me so much when mine came up African that I had it done again," he said. "I had to have a second opinion. But it came back the same way. I had three done. They were all the same."

In order to conduct the larger DNA study, Goins and his fellow researchers — who are genealogists but not academics — had to define who was a Melungeon.

In recent years, it has become a catchall term for people of mixed-race ancestry and has been applied to about 200 communities in the eastern U.S. — from New York to Louisiana.

Among them were the Montauks, the Mantinecocks, Van Guilders, the Clappers, the Shinnecocks and others in New York. Pennsylvania had the Pools; North Carolina the Lumbees, Waccamaws and Haliwas and South Carolina the Redbones, Buckheads, Yellowhammers, Creels and others. In Louisiana, which somewhat resembled a Latin American nation with its racial mixing, there were Creoles of the Cane River region and the Redbones of western Louisiana, among others.

The latest DNA study limited participants to those whose families were called Melungeon in the historical records of the 1800s and early 1900s in and around Tennessee's Hawkins and Hancock Counties, on the Virginia border some 200 miles northeast of Nashville.

The study does not rule out the possibility of other races or ethnicities forming part of the Melungeon heritage, but none were detected among the 69 male lines and 8 female lines that were tested. Also, the study did not look for later racial mixing that might have occurred, for instance with Native Americans.

Goins estimates there must be several thousand descendants of the historical Melungeons alive today, but the study only examined unbroken male and female lines.

The origin of the word Melungeon is unknown, but there is no doubt it was considered a slur by white residents in Appalachia who suspected the families of being mixed race.

"It's sometimes embarrassing to see the lengths your ancestors went to hide their African heritage, but look at the consequences" said Wayne Winkler, past president of the Melungeon Heritage Association. "They suffered anyway because of the suspicion."

The DNA study is ongoing as researchers continue to locate additional Melungeon descendants. (Associated Press )

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No link to cancer in large-scale mobile phone study

No link to cancer in large-scale mobile phone study - The largest study of its kind found no link between long-term use of mobile phones and increased risk of brain tumours, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported on Friday.

Danish researchers found no evidence of enhanced risk among more than 350,000 mobile-phone subscribers whose health was monitored over 18 years.

Earlier research on the possible link between cell phone use and cancerous tumours has been inconclusive, partly due to lack of long-term data.

In June, the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified the radio-frequency electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phones as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."

The new study follows up an earlier investigation that compared the cancer risk faced by all mobile phone subscribers in Denmark -- some 420,000 people -- with the rest of the adult population.

The largest study of its kind found no link between long-term use of mobile phones and increased risk of brain tumours, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported on Friday. (AFP Photo/Spencer Platt)

Patrizia Frei, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish Cancer Society, and colleagues examined health records from 1990 to 2007 for 358,403 cell phone subscribers.

Overall, 10,729 tumours of the central nervous system were diagnosed.

But among people with the longest mobile phone use -- 13 years or more -- cancer rates were nearly the same as for non-subscribers.

"The extended follow-up allowed us to investigate effects in people who had used mobile phones for 10 years or more, and this long-term use was not associated with higher risks of cancer," the study concluded.

The findings, however, could not rule out the possibility of a "small to moderate increase in risk" for very heavy users, or people who have used cell phones for longer than 15 years.

"Further studies with large study populations where the potential for misclassification of exposure and selection bias is minimised are warranted," the researchers said.

In a commentary, Anders Ahlbom and Maria Feychting from Sweden's Karolinska Institute said the new evidence was reassuring but called for continued monitoring of health registers.

There are about five billion mobile phones registered in the world, a figure that continues to rise sharply along with the average amount of time spent using them.

The IARC does not issue formal recommendations, but its experts pointed in June to a number of ways consumers can reduce possible risk.

Texting and using hands-free sets for voice calls lower exposure to potentially harmful radiation, compared to device-to-ear voice calls, by at least 10-fold, they said. ( AFP )

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New dinosaur tracks found in US state

New dinosaur tracks found in US state - Researchers at the University of Arkansas are studying a new field of fossilized dinosaur tracks, including one set that appears to be from a large three-toed predator, the university said Wednesday.

The tracks were found on private land in southwest Arkansas and provide a window into the life forms that roamed the area as long as 120 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period.

“The quality of the tracks and the length of the trackways make this an important site,” said Stephen K. Boss, who led the project.

The research effort is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Based on the rock in which the footprints were found, researchers have a good idea of what the climate would have been like, Boss said.

Tracks from a three-toed dinosaur that researchers are studying in Southwest Arkansas are seen in this July 2011 photo provided by the University of Arkansas. (AP)

“Picture an environment much like that of the shores of the Persian Gulf today. The air temperature was hot. The water was shallow and very salty,” Boss said. “It was a harsh environment. We’re not sure what the animals were doing here, but clearly they were here in some abundance.”

Some of the tracks in the field have not been documented before in Arkansas. The researchers’ work will expand knowledge about dinosaurs that roamed the area and the climate during the period.

The tracks from the three-toed dinosaur are about 2 feet (0.6 meters) long by 1 foot (0.3 meter) wide and likely are from Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, one of the largest predators ever known. There are also prints from sauropods, large, long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs. Other sauropod tracks have been found in the state, including at a site near Nashville, also in the state’s southwest.

“Through tracks, we can learn all sorts things about dinosaur biomechanics and behavior,” said University of Kansas researcher Brian Platt, who is taking part in the program. “Dinosaur bones can be dragged away by animals or swept out to sea. But we know that about 120 million years ago, dinosaurs walked right through here.”

The grant from the National Science Foundation enabled a team of researchers to spend two weeks studying the site. They used traditional tools, including hammers, chisels and brooms, but also cutting-edge technology to record images, take measurements and map the site.

Rock samples from the site can also shed light on the conditions under which the dinosaurs lived.

“Because we see footprints here, we know that this surface was at one time exposed to the elements,” said Celina Suarez, a postdoctoral researcher at Boise State University who will be joining the faculty at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2012.

Researchers can calculate how much rain fell and how much moisture evaporated. Using data from this site and others, scientists can learn more about the climate in general and work to predict the planet’s future climate.

“This site will add to the knowledge of both the animals and climate of the Early Cretaceous,” Boss said. “Scientists will be studying these data for many years.” ( arabnews.com )

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Viruses are 'new normal' for honey bees

Viruses are 'new normal' for honey bees - California scientists said Tuesday they have identified four new viruses in healthy honey bee colonies, a finding that could help solve the mystery of mass bee die-offs in some parts of the world.

The previously unknown viruses turned up during a 10-month study of a commercial beekeeping operation that included more than 70,000 hives and 20 colonies that were transported across the United States to pollinate crops.

The colonies appeared healthy and did not see any of the mass deaths that have eradicated as much as 30 percent of the US population of honey bees since 2006.

Understanding the 27 unique honey bee viruses -- including four new ones and others possibly involved in colony collapse -- and how they circulate in healthy populations could offer scientists a baseline for further study.

"You can't begin to understand colony die-off without understanding what normal is," said senior author Joe DeRisi, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Honey bee colony declines in recent years have reached 10 to 30 percent in Europe, 30 percent in the United States, and up to 85 percent in Middle East, according to a UN report on the issue released earlier this year.

Honey bees are critical to global agriculture. They pollinate more than 100
different crops, representing up to $83 billion in crop value world wide each year and roughly one-third of the human diet.

According to co-author Michelle Flenniken of the study published in the online journal PloS One, the patterns of infection show that more than one factor is likely to blame for colony collapse.

"Clearly, there is more than just exposure involved," said Flenniken.

"We noticed that specific viruses dominated in some seasons, but also found that not all of the colonies tested positively for a virus at the same time, even after long-distance transport in close proximity."

The researchers also found six species of bacteria and six fungi, four types of mites and a parasitic fly called a phorid, which had not previously been seen in honey bees outside California.

Among the four newly discovered viruses was one that "turned out to be the primary element of the honey bee biome, or community of bacteria and viruses," said the study, identifying it as a strain of the Lake Sinai virus.

Hundreds of millions of its viral cells were "found in each bee in otherwise healthy colonies at certain times of the year," said the research.

"Here's a virus that's the single most abundant component of the bee biome and no one knew it was there," said DeRisi said.

World health experts believe some combination of parasites, viral and bacterial infections, pesticides, and poor nutrition resulting from the impact of human activities on the environment have all played a role in the bees' decline. ( AFP )

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Forget two world wars and one World Cup... geneticists reveal 50 per cent of Britons are GERMAN

Forget two world wars and one World Cup... geneticists reveal 50 per cent of Britons are GERMAN - It may come as a shock to those fond of quoting a world cup triumph and the outcome of two wars as signs of British superiority.

Scientists say that around half of Britons have German blood coursing through their veins.

Anybody who paid attention in their history lessons knows that tribes from northern Europe invaded Britain after the Romans left in around 410AD.

England prepare to take on Germany at the 1966 World Cup. Archaeological evidence now suggests that 50 per cent of Britons have German blood flowing through their veins

But research by leading geneticists reveals the extent to which the Germans became part of the nation's racial mix.

Together with archaeologists who have spent years on sites in the UK, they conclude that 50 per cent of us have some German blood.

Biologists at University College in London studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and northern German men – and found it surprisingly common in Great Britain.

Analysis of tooth enamel and bones found in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries supported these results.

WHO WERE HENGIST AND HORSA?

• Hengist and Horsa were two Germanic brothers who arrived on the south-east corner of England in 449 AD.
• They are credited with leading the Angle, Saxon and Jutish armies that first conquered the Celts.
  
• The siblings were called to Britain by the Celtic King Vortigem to defend his people against enemies including the Picts.
  
• For their services, they were given the island of Thanet to live on.
  
• However, following a series of falling-outs with the locals, they gradually came to own more and more land that eventually became known as the Kingdom of Kent.
  
• Indeed, Hengist is traditionally named as the founder of the Kingdom of Kent.

German archeologist Heinrich Haerke believes 'up to 200,000 emigrants' crossed the North Sea, pillaging and raping and eventually settling.

The native Celts, softened by years of peace under the Romans, were no match for the raiding parties from across the North Sea.

Pottery and jewellery similar to that found in grave sites along the Elbe River in northern Germany has been unearthed in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries here.

There is also evidence the settlers remained in contact with relatives on the Continent for up to three generations.

The findings have caused a certain amount of gloating in Germany.

'There is no use in denying it,' wrote news magazine Der Spiegel. 'It is clear that the nation which most dislikes the Germans were once Krauts themselves. A number of studies reinforce the intimacy of the German-English relationship.'

Anglo-Saxon is a catch-all phrase to refer to the invaders of the fifth and sixth centuries AD.

Angles came from the southern part of the Danish peninsula and gave their name to England and the Saxons came from the north German plain.

There were other tribes – such as the Jutes, from Jutland, who settled in Kent.

The Anglo-Saxons drove the Britons into Cornwall, Wales and the North, but a few centuries later faced waves of invaders themselves – Vikings from Scandinavia and then the Normans in 1066.

Displacement: A segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and north German men was recently found to be surprisingly common in Britain

Heritage: Archaeologists excavate the tomb of an East Saxon king in Southend in 2004 ( dailymail.co.uk )

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