Hello, Journal of Irreproducible Results Japanese Scientists Identify Ear Wax Gene
Earwax may not play a prominent part in human history but at least a small role for it has now been found by a team of Japanese researchers.
Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of the people have it, and the dry form among East Asians, while populations of Southern and Central Asia are roughly half and half. By comparing the DNA of Japanese with each type, the researchers were able to identify the gene that controls which type a person has, they report in the Monday issue of Nature Genetics.
They then found that the switch of a single DNA unit in the gene determines whether a person has wet or dry earwax. The gene's role seems to be to export substances out of the cells that secrete earwax. The single DNA change deactivates the gene and, without its contribution, a person has dry earwax.
Okay. . . .
I thought discussing wet and dry earwax was kind of iffy, but then came this: "[E]arwax type and armpit odor are correlated. . ."
Next up: Genes controlling wet or crunchy boogers.
Now, this is cool Warrior Found Buried In Attack Position
Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,000-year-old skeleton of a man who appears to be clutching a dagger and is posed as though he were about to thrust the weapon into something, or someone, according to a Cultural Heritage News report from Iran.
The unusual burial is the first of its kind for Iran, and possibly for the rest of the world.
"He is holding a 26-centimeter dagger and appears to be making a forward thrust," said archaeologist Ali Mahforuzi, who led the excavation at Gohar Tepe, where the skeleton was found.
Seems like the interpretation could go either way, though the picture does make it look like an unusual sort of burial.
And along those lines. . . A Mammoth Death Match Preserved for the Ages
In the 1960s, workers in western Nebraska stumbled on the intact remains of two giant Ice-Age mammoths, their tusks locked together -- a vestige of the battle that doomed them both. After sitting in storage for decades, the unique fossils will finally go on public display soon.
The fossils were discovered in 1962 in the Nebraska Panhandle, when a pair of workmen stumbled on a large thighbone while installing an electric line on a ranch. That summer, 20-year-old paleontology student Mike Voorhies was in the area working on a fossil dig. After working at the discovery site for a couple of days, Voorhies and his crew realized the men had found the intact remains of not one but two Ice-Age mammoths.
Apparently, they were in the middle of a fight and must have fallen over and been unable to both get up again with their tusks locked together. Bummer of a way to go.
Johor to mount hunt for 'bigfoot'
The government of the Malaysian state of Johor says it is to organise an attempt to track down a legendary ape man reputed to roam its jungles.
After a spate of sightings, Johor's chief minister says he will launch an official search for the beast, dubbed Malaysia's Big Foot by local media.
Malaysians have a long-standing love affair with anything big.
The obsessions resulted in record-breaking buildings, bridges, even piles of food.
Now they have gone crazy for Big Foot, known in local legend as Hantu Jarang Gigi - ghosts with widely spaced teeth.
Back in the late 1980s some people decided they would, if they came across a Bigfoot, shoot it so as to bring back definitive proof of its existence. This caused a flood of letters to the local papers decrying the barbarism of shooting one of these, beautiful, yet strangely, and, apparently, nonexistent, creatures.