Science News for Writers

www.dailymail.co.uk    The new Viking settlement was found on the edge of Point Rosee in Newfoundland (illustrated above) 400 miles south of another site at L'Anse aux Meadows. They suggest that the Vikings' mastery of the seas allowed them to venture to North America.    There is so much speculation on possible discoverers of the Americas ranging from Polynesians, Japanese and Chinese to French Merovingians to a lost tribe of Israel, ancient Egyptians and sailors from the lost continent of Atlantis.  There are two statements that need to be said about this: An extended family group first crossed from Siberia to North America some 14,000 years ago, and survived, built sophisticated cultures and societies, and left undeniable evidence of their presence.  To give credit where credit is due, they discovered the Americas and no one else. Until solid scientific evidence establishing other groups as having visited the Americas is prod...

Credit: Artwork by Sussi Bech  Artist's representation of the ice age landscape that early Native Americans would have encountered. This is a topic of great interest and speculation - and even some (fun) argument:  when did the first humans arrive in North America, and from where?  Now modern DNA analysis offers an answer. What modern genetic research can achieve is simply amazing.  F'rinstance ~ Do you know that all blue eyed people descend from one individual who lived around 7,000 years ago?  And that blue eyed people have a higher genetic propensity for alcoholism? I find this interesting because I have blue eyes.  I'll take the fifth on the drinking.  I'll post these studies in the near future, or, you can look them up at ScienceDaily.com. Anyway, back to the first Americans.  This research from UC Berkeley looks to resolve two main questions.  When and where?  According to this research, they arrived about 23,000 y...