Science News for Writers

Credit: Busby et al./Current Biology 2015 Gene flow within West Eurasia is shown by lines linking the best-matching  donor group to the sources of admixture with recipient clusters (arrowhead).  Line colors represent the regional identity of the donor group, and line thick- ness represents the proportion of DNA coming from the donor group. Ranges of the dates (point estimates) for events involving sources most similar to  selected donor groups are shown. It's often said that the history we know was written by the winners with the losers lost to history and memory. Until the age of DNA analysis, that is. DNA retains a record of historic events, and the collective DNA of a population can be used to trace historic movements of entire populations or invasions by outside groups. Using DNA allows us to trace historic movements of peoples in pre-history, such as recent research that shows that an unknown somewhat mysterious population invented agricultu...

Credit: University of Basel, IPNA Severe injuries inflicted either shortly before or after death: Cranial injury on a child between 3 to 5 years of age. If anyone thinks that mass killing is a modern phenomena, well, it's something the human species has been up to for a very long time.  These two Central European sites make it clear that man's inhumanity to man has deep roots. What this and like research projects don't address is the reason for the extermination of large groups of men, women and children.  Was it to make a political point?  Was it ethnic cleansing?  We may never know, though we can guess. For the writer of historical fiction, these sites create situations for speculation and the development of story lines exploring how we treat each other. Here's the report, with a link to the original study in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science. *  *  *  *  *   Massacres, torture and mutilation:  ...