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17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox

The partially mummified remains of a young child have offered a unique insight into the history of a once-feared disease. The remains, recovered from the crypt ...

Testing the validity of stable isotope analyses of dental calculus as a proxy in paleodietary studies

Stable isotopic analyses (δ13C, δ15N) of dental calculus have been suggested as a proxy for the study of diet of ancient populations but questions about their ...

The paradox of HBV evolution as revealed from a 16th century mummy

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a ubiquitous viral pathogen associated with large-scale morbidity and mortality in humans. However, there is considerable ...

Evolution of the Mylodontidae and Arborealism in Sloths

Nuclear and mitochondrial data from Darwin's extinct ground sloth shows close relation to two-fingered sloths and supports multiple origins for arboreality.

Surveying the repair of ancient DNA from bones via high-throughput sequencing

A comparative analysis on DNA repair/recovery methodologies to increase the amount of recoverable material.

Ancient pathogen DNA in archaeological samples detected with a Microbial Detection Array

Research paper outlining the usefulness of broad microarrays as a rapid and inexpensive paleopathological screening tool for ancient samples.

Second-Pandemic Strain of Vibrio cholerae from the Philadelphia Cholera Outbreak of 1849

Research paper on the identification and retrieval of Vibrio cholerae from preserved intestines of a victim of the 1849 cholera outbreak in Philadelphia, part ...

Agouti sequence polymorphism in coyotes and specific sequence differences from wolves and dogs

Here we report an examination of the alleles found in Canadian wild canids (wolves and coyotes) for the Agouti locus. Our analysis revealed that the Agouti ...

Genetic analyses from ancient DNA

A critical assessment of the state of ancient DNA research and a review of some significant contributions and promising future research areas.

Genomewide comparison of DNA sequences between humans and chimpanzees

We sequenced a total of 8,859 DNA molecules encompassing approximately 1.9 million base pairs of the chipanzee genome, and compared them to their homologous ...