GoKawiilThe 15,000-year-old remains of domestic dogs hint at their importance to early communities with different ways of living. Plus, ‘grade inflation’ hits PhDs and how environmental scientists can reinvent their research when funding is scarce.
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Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were domesticated from grey wolves (Canis lupus) at least 14,200 years ago, towards the end of the last ice age.Credit: Martin Schroeder/CHROMORANGE via Alamy
Researchers have identified the earliest known dog genomes, which push the genetic record for dogs back by more than 5,000 years. They recovered these genomes from remains of between 14,000 and 16,000 years old found at archaeological sites that span Europe and the Middle East. The team also identified an early domestic dog population (Canis lupus familiaris) that spanned Western Eurasia and was kept by diverse human hunter-gatherer groups. The findings show that dogs were exported and exchanged by various human groups, underlying dogs’ importance to early communities with different ways of living.
Nature | 6 min read
Reference: Nature paper 1 & paper 2
Scientists have created the first atlas of key patterns of ‘chatter’ between different areas of the brain over the entire human lifespan. Drawing on brain scans from 3,600 people — ranging from infants to centenarians — the guide maps a property called functional connectivity, which describes the level of coordination between separate brain regions. Such a guide could be useful for understanding when developmental issues and neurodegenerative conditions emerge, says neuroscientist Jakob Seidlitz. But it can’t capture how functional connectivity might differ between individuals.
Nature | 5 min read
Reference: Nature paper
Go deeper with analysis from neuroscientists Richard Bethlehem and Daniel Margulies in Nature News & Views (7 min read)
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