Word: dog
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Three studies presented in the journal Science last week help resolve all these questions. The first paper addresses where the wolf-to-dog transformation took place. Biologist Jennifer Leonard, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, and her co-authors collected the remains of dogs buried in North, Central and South America before Columbus showed up (and thus before interbreeding with European dogs could have taken place) and sampled their mitochondrial DNA, or MTDNA, which is passed on only from the mother. If these ancient American dogs had arisen locally, their MTDNA should have been similar...
That also jibes with the work of Peter Savolainen of Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology. Savolainen and his colleagues used MTDNA in their study too--in this case, to see how much the genetic material varied within dog populations. Animals from East Asia turned out to have the most variation, suggesting that this group's MTDNA had been around the longest and had had more time to branch into different subtypes. Presumably, then, the dogs arose there...
...comparing the dog MTDNA with the MTDNA of wolves, Savolainen and his colleagues were also able to estimate when the change happened. Beginning with approximations of how frequently MTDNA mutations take place and then counting the number present in their samples, they concluded that the genetic branching began 15,000 years ago, if three families of wolves were involved, or 40,000, if the entire process began with a single family...
...Celebrity Radar: Richard Dreyfuss, in town for a Kirkland House event, enjoyed a lovely meal in the Kirkland dining hall. Clint G. Wallach ’03 had a special-ordered hot dog stolen by the Jaws star. Just when he thought it was safe... J-Lo and Ben Affleck are rumored to be coming to a tailgate at this year’s Big Game. Campus playboy Brian M. Briginz ’03, who irritated J-Lo last month at Redline, is already choosing his outfit. “If she’s really still Jenny from...
Instead of frigid gray Boston, I will see a Friendly Manhattan followed by a gay Manhattan, a sunny Miami and a drama-packed Chicago. The logical questions won’t be asked: Isn’t New York City a slushy mush of snow and dog poop in the winter? Don’t people blow away in Chicago on a regular basis? No, no. TV world is Happy World, and for three hours every Thursday night, I’m a part...