A Purdue University archaeologist discovered an intact ancient iron ore mine in South America that shows how civilizations before the Inca Empire were mining this valuable ore.

"Archaeologists know people in the Old and New worlds have mined minerals for thousands and thousands of years," said Kevin J. Vaughn, an assistant professor of anthropology who studies the Nasca civilization, which existed from A.D. 1 to A.D. 750. "Iron mining in the Old World, specifically in Africa, goes back 40,000 years. And we know the ancient people in Mexico, Central America and North America were mining for various materials. There isn't much evidence for these types of mines.

"What we found is the only hematite mine, a type of iron also known as ochre, recorded in South America prior to the Spanish conquest. This discovery demonstrates that iron ores were important to ancient Andean civilizations."

The Fertile Crescent of the Middle East has long been identified as a “cradle of civilization” for humans. In a new genetic study, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have concluded that all ancestral roads for the modern day domestic cat also lead back to the same locale.

Findings of the study, involving more than 11,000 cats, are reported in the cover article of the January issue of the journal Genomics.

“This study confirms earlier research suggesting that the domestication of the cat started in the Fertile Crescent region,” said Monika Lipinski, lead researcher on the study and a doctoral candidate in the School of Veterinary Medicine. “It also provides a warning for modern cat fanciers to make sure they maintain a broad genetic base as they further develop their breeds.”

We might think we control the climate but unless we harness the powers of our microbial co-habitants on this planet we might be fighting a losing battle.

Humans mostly affect the atmosphere indirectly by our activities. Most human-induced methane comes from livestock, rice fields and landfill but in all of those places, microbes are actually responsible for producing the methane, 150 million tons per year. Microbes in wetlands produce an additional 100 million tons and those that live inside termites release 20 million tons of methane annually.

A new study sheds light on the relationship between women who smoke while pregnant — or are exposed to second-hand smoke — and an increased risk of SIDS to their babies.

Researchers at McMaster University have found a mechanism that explains why an infant’s ability to respond to oxygen deprivation after birth — or a hypoxic episode — is dramatically compromised by exposure to nicotine in the womb, even light to moderate amounts.

“While cigarette smoke contains many different compounds, we found there is a direct impact of one component, nicotine, on the ability of certain cells to detect and respond to oxygen deprivation,” says Josef Buttigieg, lead author and a PhD graduate student in the department of Biology. “When a baby is lying face down in bed, for example, it should sense a reduction in oxygen and move its head. But this arousal mechanism doesn’t work as it should in babies exposed to nicotine during pregnancy.”

Sequences of DNA in the human genome that originated from ancient viral infections have some surprising effects on our bodies and are even essential for a healthy pregnancy, according to an article in the February issue of Microbiology Today.

Retrovirus infections represent the most intimate host-pathogen relationship. The virus inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of the host cell, resulting in an irreversible, stable and sometimes lifelong infection. If a sperm or egg cell is infected, the virus DNA can be passed down generations, permanently fixed in the germ line. As a result, an endogenous retrovirus (ERV) can exist for millions of years.

The combined supercomputing power of the UK and US ‘national grids’ has enabled UCL (University College London) scientists to simulate the efficacy of an HIV drug in blocking a key protein used by the lethal virus. The method – an early example of the Virtual Physiological Human in action – could one day be used to tailor personal drug treatments, for example for HIV patients developing resistance to their drugs.

The study, published online today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ran a large number of simulations to predict how strongly the drug saquinavir would bind to three resistant mutants of HIV-1 protease, a protein produced by the virus to propagate itself. These protease mutations are associated with the disease’s resistance to saquinavir, an HIV-inhibitor drug.