Ancient glue, crochet microbes, and more stories you might have missed this week
How did horses spread across North America? What can ancient DNA tell us about Down syndrome in people who lived long ago? And why is one microbiologist making bacteria out of yarn? Check out the answers below in some of our favorite selections from
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Indigenous and Western scientists team up to reconstruct the history of North American horses
Established in 1923, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize is AAAS’s oldest prize, awarded annually to the authors of an “outstanding”
Science
paper. This year’s winner, published in March 2023, was a unanimous choice. The study weaves together Indigenous science, archaeozoological data, and cutting-edge genomics to
tell the story of how domestic horses spread across North America
. Although the Americas once had native horses, they went locally extinct thousands of years ago toward the end of the last ice age. Western scientists believed the animals didn’t roam the Great Plains or reach the Rocky Mountains again
until Europeans colonized those regions in the 18th century
. But that story conflicted with Indigenous science and oral traditions that told of horses living with them much earlier than that. Ultimately, they were proved right based on evidence brought to light in this award-winning paper.
Ancient genomes reveal prehistoric people with Down syndrome
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Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news
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