Native American 'missing link' was from Asia: Study

The place in Montana where the burial site was found. — AFP

Artifacts taken from the site. — AFP

PARIS (AFP) — Nearly 13,000 years ago, a baby boy died in what is Montana today.
Mourners stained his tiny body with red ochre and entombed him with artefacts that had likely been in his family for generations.
After lying undisturbed for millennia, the infant's body was dug up by accident at a construction site in 1968 — the oldest skeleton ever found in the Americas.
Now, scientists say the remains have helped them settle a long-standing debate about the lineage of indigenous Americans, and shed light on the settlement of the last continent to be populated by modern humans.
After decoding the child's genome, an international team of experts said they can confirm that modern Native Americans are direct descendents of the first people to have settled the continent from Asia some 15,000 years ago, and not migrants from Europe.
"The genetic data... confirms that the ancestors of this boy originated from Asia," said Michael Waters of the Texas-based Center for the Study of the First Americans, who co-authored the report in the journal Nature.
The child's family, in turn, were "directly ancestral to present-day Native Americans".
The boy had been a member of the so-called Clovis culture which lived in North America between 13,000 and 12,600 years ago and is known for its distinctive hand axes, blades and bone and ivory tools.
There has long been a dispute as to where the group's ancestors came from.
Some believed Clovis forefathers came from east Asia, crossing the Bering Strait, which about 15,000 years ago formed an ice bridge.
Others claimed to have found evidence that Native Americans derived from a cross-Atlantic migration of southwestern Europeans during the Last Glacial Maximum some 21,000 to 17,000 yeas ago, when vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and Asia.
Genetic analysis showed the boy, who was 12-18 months old when he died about 12,600 years ago, was more similar to Siberians than other Eurasians or any other people in the world, the scientists reported.
"The study does not support the idea that the first Americans originated from Europe," said Waters.
"A single migration of humans introduced the majority of the founding population of the Americas south of the ice sheet at the close of the last Ice Age."
According to co-author Eske Willerslev of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, the child's family was "directly ancestral to so many peoples in the Americas.
"It is astonishing. We don't have of course genetic information from all tribes, but you could say that just a very, very rough estimate would be about 80 percent deriving from that group. It's almost like a missing link."
Examination of the remains have also yielded new insight into the cultural practices of the first inhabitants of the Americas.
The child's remains had been found buried under 125 artefacts that included spear points and tools made of elk antler.
The skeleton as well as the relics, which were dated to about 13,000 years ago, had been covered in powdered ochre, a type of mineral.
"The difference in age between the skeleton and the... tools as well as the fact that this (elk) was a rare animal, suggest that the artefacts were very special ritual objects or heirlooms passed down over generations," said Waters.
Researchers on the team said they were eager to build closer ties with Native American groups in their future scientific pursuits.
"We want to bring American Indians to the table with this research so they can help guide the most respectful and appropriate way to do this kind of research," said Shane Doyle of Montana State University.
The child's remains are to be reburied later this year.

Floating school offers hope in 'Venice of Africa'

Venice of Africa

LAGOS — It's been dubbed the "Venice of Africa" but comparisons between the sprawling Lagos community of Makoko and the historic Italian city begin and end at the water's edge.
Makoko's makeshift huts rise from the murky waters of the lagoon around Nigeria's biggest city, a far cry from the ornate bridges and buildings that mark out Venice's cultural and commercial past.
The arts transformed Venice and sealed its reputation as one of the most important centers of the European Renaissance.
Now it is hoped that education, with the help of innovative architecture, can help create a better future for the children of Makoko.
The prospect comes in the shape of a floating school, built entirely by locals and launched last year, whose triangular frame rises from the water like a half-built house submerged in a flood.
The project, backed by the UN Development Fund, the Nigerian government and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, is the brainchild of local architect Kunle Adeyemi.
His design was inspired by life in the so-called "slum on stilts" and he said that improving the neglected area required a new approach more in tune with local customs and the environment.

The floating school in Makoko

"Living on water is actually a way of life... so, the question is then how do you improve that condition, how do you address the challenges of living on water in a safe, healthy and environmentally sound way?" he told AFP TV.
Unlike Venice, which attracts millions of tourists from around the world every year, few visitors to Lagos are likely to find their way to Makoko.
From the Third Mainland Bridge which snakes nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) through the lagoon, thick wood smoke and fumes from diesel-powered generators can be seen hanging above the patchwork of corrugated iron and tarpaulin roofs.
Fishermen on the lagoon scour the waters in search of the day's catch. Wooden canoes —the only way to get around — ply the watery strips between the flimsy lean-to shacks and washing lines.
The new school is also visible from the bridge, floating on 250 empty blue barrels fixed under its wooden base designed to get around the problems of periodic flooding in the area.
Its three storeys make it the tallest structure in Makoko and with 220 square meters (2,370 square feet) of floor space, it is also the neighborhood's biggest communal facility.
Fishermen can tether their canoes to the base and come just to mend their nets, as much as children wanting to learn — often for the very first time — or play.

Side view of the floating school

From the top of the A-frame, under its solar panels, the high-rise buildings and lights of Lagos Island — the heart of Nigeria's financial hub — can be seen in the distance.
The people of Makoko eke out a living by fishing and trading. Few of the estimated 150,000 people who live in the neighborhood can aspire to escape a life of poverty.
Jeremiah Oleole Austin is one of the few young people to have gone on to further education.
"I was born and brought up here so I know how the people suffer, I feel their pain, I feel their cry and I also know their happiness," said the art student, who is also known as "Big Babba".
"I know what they really need in this community and which is not capable for us to do it. Without some... training or skills, how can they go places?
"There's only a few of us that went out into the city to see more... If there are more schools, I believe there is going to be changes in the community."
Headteacher Noah Shemede couldn't agree more.

Kunle Adeyemi

"Every child deserves an education wherever they are," he said. "We are on water and that doesn't mean that we can't go to school on water. We have to.
"We need more schools to accommodate thousands of children that are at home. We need more schools."
Adeyemi for his part said the building could also be used differently — both in Nigeria and beyond.
"Its main aim is to generate a sustainable, ecological, alternative building system and urban water culture for the teeming population of Africa's coastal regions," his firm, NLE, said on its website.
"It is really just a structure that could actually be used for different forms of uses," added the architect.
"It could be a home, you could use the same prototype and develop that into homes, you could develop it into hospitals, you can develop it into a theater, a restaurant, all kinds of facilities.
"The key thing is that we have developed a prototype of building and architecture on water using local materials and local resources and available technology." — AFP

Double take: Twins galore on Havana street

By Andrea Rodriguez


 HAVANA (AP) — Some say it could be something in the water. Others point to a tree with mystical significance for locals. Maybe it's just chance. But neighbors all marvel at the 12 sets of twins living along two consecutive blocks in western Havana, ranging in age from newborns to senior citizens.

In this Sept. 29, 2013 photo twins pose for a portrait near a Siguaraya tree. — AP

 "We were the first ones," said Fe Fernandez, 65, who wears her gray hair closely cropped. "It's incredible!" said her identical sister, Esperanza, who shares the same features but whose black-dyed hair falls to shoulder length. At first blush there isn't much about 68-A Street to mark it as different from anywhere else in the city. But if you spend any amount of time here, before long you might think you're seeing double.
 "Hi, I'm Carla, and this is my sister Camila," said Carla Rodriguez, a smiley, bespectacled 9-year-old. "We're twins and we love living on this block because we have twin friends."
"I never expected it. No fertility treatments. It was my first pregnancy, and at five weeks they did an ultrasound and I was carrying twins," said Tamara Velazquez, who's been busy raising 6-year-old identical sisters Asley and Aslen.
"It's a lot of work. It requires a lot of patience," Velazquez said. "They are very active and dominant, although each has a different character." Ten of the twin sets here are identical, and the other two fraternal. None of the mothers interviewed by The Associated Press said they had received fertility treatments. None of the families are related to each other.

Twins on their way to school in Havana. — AP

All but one of the sets were born into these homes, and the lone newcomers moved into a house that was vacated by twins who moved to Spain. Others have died or moved away over the years. "Twins leave, twins come," Fe Fernandez joked.
The 70 or so houses on these two short blocks are home to around 224 people, extrapolating from national statistics on average household size. That works out to about one set of twins for every 20 people. Historically the rate has been about one per 80 live births, though experts say that's rising globally, primarily in developed countries where fertility treatments are more readily available. It's impossible to say what could be behind the high number of twins here, or whether there is any cause at all.
Scientists say a variety of factors play into twin births, such as race, the mother's age and diet. Western Africa, from where many Afro-Cubans can trace their ancestry, has significantly elevated rates of twinning.
Meanwhile statisticians caution against the human tendency to seek patterns of serendipity in a random world. "Something could definitely be there, it could be a combination of various factors," Andrew Gelman, a statistics professor at Columbia University, said via email. "In addition, opportunistic counting can make a small and natural pattern appear larger."
For example focusing on these two blocks without considering other surrounding ones, he added, "puts the spotlight on a small subset." While there's been no scholarly study of the twins on 68-A Street, they nonetheless consider themselves part of a special community.
Some look to faith for an explanation.
"There are neighbors who are religious. Many say it's the Siguaraya tree, which people ask for things and is in one of the homes," Fe Fernandez said. "The people believe in it strongly." Leafy and embellished with delicate white blossoms, the Siguaraya is considered sacred in the syncretic Afro-Cuban Santeria faith and is associated with a powerful "orisha," or spirit.
Others, like Mercedes Montero, mother of 21-year-old Xavier and Lorena, chalk it up to the luck of the draw. "It's a very big coincidence," Montero said, "one of those strange things in life."

Who's your daddy? DNA clinic gives answers, sparks concerns

* Mobile clinic offers paternity, other biological tests * U.S. demand for DNA testing steadily increasing * Experts concerned about accuracy, psychological impact By Lily Kuo NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A mobile DNA testing facility that looks more like a motor home than a medical clinic is raising questions about the ramifications of quick and easy tests to determine paternity and other biological connections. Once a time-consuming and complicated process, DNA testing has become so accessible that experts worry families and individuals may not be properly prepared for the results. A 28-foot (8.5-meter) recreational vehicle cruising around New York City emblazoned with the question "Who's Your Daddy?", and offering on-the-spot DNA testing services starting at $299, has renewed those concerns. The clinic, operated by a New York company called Health Street, started in 2010 but was revamped two months ago. Passersby can hail the conspicuous brown and blue Winnebago to have DNA samples taken by a technician, packaged and sent to a laboratory in Ohio. Results are returned within three to five business days. Mandatory prescriptions for the tests from a customer's physician can be faxed via the Internet to the RV. While it is common for DNA testing distributors, companies who take the samples and send them to labs for analysis, to offer mobile collection services, Health Street appears to be the first to splash exactly what it does on the vehicle. "DNA TESTING" in bold red lettering is painted on the side. Jared Rosenthal, who founded Health Street and drives the RV, recounts some of the people affected by his service: Two women who learned they were half-sisters, and a man whose suspicion that he might be the father of a friend's daughter was confirmed. "It's just such a serious, fundamental question ... who are your children? Who are your parents?" Rosenthal, 42 said. Experts say there has been a steady increase in demand for such tests in the United States, reaching close to 500,000 a year, according to Michael Baird, director of DNA Diagnostics, a DNA testing laboratory, in part because the rate of births to unmarried women has also been increasing. In 2010, at least 382,199 relationship tests were conducted in the United States, although the total is likely higher because some labs don't submit data, according to the AABB, formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks, which accredits relationship testing facilities. State child-support agencies make up the bulk of this demand, but experts said the number of people simply seeking answers, and the accompanying number of venues and ways to test for family relationships, have increased. Susan Crockin, a lawyer who teaches at Georgetown Law Center and specializes in reproductive technology, said families should be careful of the reliability of the growing variety of relationship tests around the country, which range from at-home DNA kits that critics say can be subject to contamination, to on-site tests used to prove legal paternity. "The underlying issues are obviously the quality of testing," Crockin said. Health Street's DNA tests are analyzed in a lab certified by the AABB as well as the New York State Department of Health, Rosenthal said. Health experts advise customers to only use labs accredited by AABB or distributors who use those labs, but there are no regulations on the outfits themselves. It is also not illegal to run a DNA testing laboratory that is not AABB-certified, Baird said. Customers at Health Street must have a prescription from a doctor requesting the tests, Rosenthal said. Paternity testing is usually not covered by health insurance unless there is a medical need. HEARTBREAK CASES Aside from questions about reliability, experts said wider DNA testing raises concerns of whether families and individuals are psychologically prepared for the results. "The bigger question is what do we do with this information. Why are we looking for it and what do we think it means?" Crockin said. Crockin said individuals, especially children, should have the advice of trained genetic counselors before and at the time of receiving the results of the DNA match. Others say the promotion and presence of these DNA testing clinics and methods could devalue past family relationships when new biological connections are discovered. "As this (industry) evolves it will create... a social expectation that, despite a past relationship between a social father and a child, DNA is everything," said David Bishai, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Typical customers at Health Street include men who are engaged and want to confirm offspring from a past relationship, returning soldiers seeking reassurance that they fathered newly-born children, and women inquiring about paternity on behalf of their children, Rosenthal said. The door, however, is open to heartbreak, especially when men discover that somebody else fathered their children. "If you're really happy with the children in your life, don't go near these things," Bishai said. Others are happy to receive the results. Cornelia Heggs, 40, of Carrollton, Georgia, grew up knowing she had half-siblings from her absent father's other marriages but never met them. She was contacted in 2009 by a half-sister who promised their mutual grandmother that she would find Heggs. The two women confirmed their relationship in June through a test at Health Street. "We found each other and now we have the proof. There's no more guessing. I'm just happy to know," she said. For others the information opens an uncertain chapter. A 44-year-old married father of two in New York City confirmed in July through a DNA test at Health Street's mobile clinic that the adult daughter of a woman he dated some 20 years ago was his. The man, who declined to give his name for reasons of privacy, said he is slowly and cautiously building a relationship with his 20-year-old daughter, a student in Ohio. "This issue is still raw and very sensitive," he said. "I will get to know my daughter ... this is something I'm taking one day at a time."

Vogue profile of Syrian leader's wife disappears

NEW YORK, April 26, 2012 (AFP) -A flattering Vogue profile of Asma Al-Assad, wife of Syria's besieged president Bashar Al-Assad, has been removed from the magazine's website, as the government crackdown on dissent rumbles on.
The article, written in February 2011, described her as "glamorous, young, and very chic — the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies," but the assessment came to be seen differently in the wake of the unrest roiling Syria.
The profile said the Syrian first lady's central mission was to "change the mindset" of six million of the country's citizens aged under 18 and encourage them to engage in what she calls "active citizenship."
The remarks, however, provoked astonishment given the crackdown on a revolt against the leadership of President Assad, in which more than 9,000 people have died since March 2011, according to UN figures.
"It's about everyone taking shared responsibility in moving this country forward, about empowerment in a civil society.
"We all have a stake in this country; it will be what we make it," the Vogue profile quoted the Syrian leader's wife as saying.
"I like to get out and meet people and do things," it added.
A series of leaked emails in March this year appeared to show that Syria's first lady spent tens of thousands of dollars online on jewelry, chandeliers and other expensive goods to be shipped to her while the flashpoint city of Homs was being bombarded.
A petition was launched last week by the wives of the British and German ambassadors to the United Nations, urging the Syrian first lady to "speak out for peace, to ask for a stop to the bloodshed."
"Make your voice heard! Stop being a bystander. It is your duty to prevent the breakout of civil war as a woman, as a wife and as a mother of young children yourself," said the petition, which has more than 34,000 signatures.
A spokeswoman for Vogue magazine, contacted by AFP, was not available for comment Thursday on why the profile was no longer available online.

Jilted fruit flies turn to alcohol to forget: study

Jilted fruit fly drunk with alcohol.

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2012 (AFP) -Frustrated male fruit flies, whose sexual advances are rejected by females, turn to alcohol to drown their sorrows, a study published Thursday revealed.
Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco discovered that rejected male flies have a tiny neuropeptide F molecule in their brain that pushes them to drink far more than their sexually satisfied counterparts.
The levels of the molecule were higher in sexually satisfied males than in those who got no sex, leading scientists to speculate that their work could shed light on brain mechanisms behind human addiction.
A similar human molecule -- neuropeptide Y -- may also link social triggers to behaviors such as heavy drinking and drug abuse, according to the study published in Science journal.
"If neuropeptide Y turns out to be the transducer between the state of the psyche and the drive to abuse alcohol and drugs, one could develop therapies to inhibit neuropeptide Y receptors," said lead researcher Ulrike Heberlein, a professor of anatomy and neurology at UCSF.
She said clinical trials were underway to determine whether neuropeptide Y can alleviate anxiety and other mood disorders as well as obesity.
For the experiment, male fruit flies were placed in a container with females flies, including both virgins and some that had already mated.
Virgin females were receptive to courting males and readily mated, but females flies who had mated lost interest in sex for a time because of sex peptide, a substance that males inject with sperm during the encounter.
Rejected males then stopped trying to mate, even when placed in the same cage as virgin flies.
But when they were placed by themselves in another container that had two straws -- one containing plain food and the other containing food with 15 percent alcohol -- the rejected males binged on the alcohol.
The scientists said the behavior was predicted by the levels of neuropeptide F in their brains.
"It's a switch that represents the level of reward in the brain and translates it into reward-seeking behavior," said lead author Galit Shohat-Ophir of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Center in Virginia.
Rejected flies had lower levels of neuropeptide F and sought an alternative reward through intoxication.
The scientists found that they could induce the same behaviors in the flies by genetically manipulating the levels of neuropeptide F in their brains.
Activating neuropeptide F production in the brains of virgin male flies caused them to behave as though they were sexually satisfied, and thus they were less keen to drink.
And lowering the levels of the molecule in sexually satisfied flies made them behave as though they were rejected, inciting them to drink more.

Woman in iconic tsunami photo looks to future

By Yuriko Nakao

ISHINOMAKI, Japan, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The young Japanese woman clutches a beige blanket tight around her shoulders as she stares into the distance. Behind her hulks twisted metal and splintered wood left by the tsunami that devastated Ishinomaki, her hometown.
The photograph, taken by Tadashi Okubo at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, was picked up by Reuters and other agencies around the world, becoming an iconic image of the March 11 disaster that killed 20,000 people.
The woman's name is Yuko Sugimoto. She is now 29 years old.
When the photo was taken, around 7 a.m. on March 13, she was looking in the direction of her son Raito's kindergarten, which was partly submerged and surrounded by piles of debris. Nearly two days after the quake she had yet to find the four-year-old.
"At that point, I thought there was only about a 50 percent chance he was alive," she recalled recently.
"Some people told me the children at the kindergarten were rescued, but others told me that somebody had seen the children all swept away by the tsunami."Sugimoto was born and raised in Ishinomaki, a city of 150,000 known for its port and fishing industry before the wall of water unleashed by the 9.0 magnitude offshore quake roared in. Around 3,800 people perished, the highest toll for a single city.
Delivering beverages for her business when the quake struck, she desperately tried to reach the kindergarten, but was forced to flee the tsunami, spending the night in her car.
Reunited with her husband the next day, the two began making the rounds of evacuation centers -- first by car, then by bicycle as fuel ran out. Her husband found a boat and paddled his way towards the kindergarten, but found no one there.
It wasn't until the next day that the couple heard that their son and other children had been rescued by the military from the roof of the kindergarten the morning after the tsunami.
"When I saw Raito in the corner of a room, the next moment I was weeping so hard I couldn't see anything," Sugimoto said.
She hugged him and checked his hands, his feet, every bit of his body. She even checked his smell, to be certain it really was him. Holding him tight, she said "Thank goodness, thank goodness," over and over.
A YEAR LATER
Nearly a year later, Sugimoto stood in the same place, embracing her son and smiling. Behind her, the gently sloping road was clean, with cars and trucks stopped at a traffic light.
Her smile suggests that her life is back on track, but that is not true. Though the debris was cleared much more quickly than she expected, it will take some time for Sugimoto and her family to get on with their lives.
The house they built four years ago was submerged nearly to its second floor and they lost most of their belongings. What remains is a 31-year-mortgage of around 25 million yen ($310,000) they still have to pay.
They now live in a rented house, but the lease expires next year. Returning to the old house would mean razing it and rebuilding from scratch.
"I used to love the ocean, but ever since the disaster, I haven't been to the ocean even once. I want to stay on in Ishinomaki, but far away from the ocean," she said.
Despite the financial burdens, Sugimoto's priorities have changed. Though she once worked even through vacations, she has now quit her job to spend more time with her family.
"Now, every single day is precious to me. I realise that time with my family is what is most important," she said. "Our bond is even tighter now."