Interest in family history is at its highest. Young people want to know where they came from, as well as the people who built their family and their country. Genetic Genealogy is an exciting new field that can help in tracing lineage and finding a haplogroup to see where a person's ancestors traveled. DNA: Window to the Past explains all about genetic genealogy, what is DNA, why it is important, and how it can be useful in learning more about a person's heritage. Readers explore their own and other people's pasts, creating an understanding of the opportunities and challenges that built this nation. ABDO & Daughters is an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.
The past few years have witnessed a revolution in our ability to obtain DNA from ancient humans. This important new data has added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations living today are mixes of ancient ones, and often carry a genetic component from archaic humans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial âpurity.' Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?
The definitive novel of today’s Silicon Valley, After On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times bestselling author Rob Reid. Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, and about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers—and they don’t even know the tenth of it. But what’s the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming “The UberX of Sex”? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will? Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it’s not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her. After On achieves the literary singularity—fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age. Praise for After On “Rob Reid’s mind is like no other known thing in the universe, and this book is a truly spectacular way to discover it.”—Chris Anderson, head of TED “An extended philosophy seminar run by a dozen insane Cold War heads-of-station, three millennial COOs and that guy you went to college with who always had the best weed but never did his laundry.”—NPR “An epic cyberthriller peppered with pop-culture references, metadata, and Silicon Valley in-jokes.”—Kirkus Reviews “It’s rare to find a book that combines laugh-out-loud humor and cutting-edge science with profound philosophical speculation. This is that book.”—Analog “[Rob Reid] writes in a humorous and sarcastic style while unveiling a terrifying and frightening scenario that seems all too real.”—Associated Press
The ability to use DNA evidence is revolutionizing our understanding of the past. This book introduces archaeologists to the basics of DNA research so they can understand the powers and pitfalls of using DNA data in archaeological analysis and interpretation. By concentrating on the principles and applications of DNA specific to archaeology, the authors allow archaeologists to collect DNA samples properly and interpret the laboratory results with greater confidence. Written by archaeologists who conduct fieldwork as well as laboratory analysis, the volume is replete with case examples of DNA work in a variety of archaeological contexts and is an ideal teaching tool for archaeologists and their students.
Gives the educated layperson a survey of DNA by presenting a brief history of genetics, an outline of techniques, and indications of breakthroughs in cloning and other DNA advances. This book helps students, business people, lawyers, and jurists gain confidence in their ability to understand and appreciate DNA technology and human genetics.
Where did modern humans come from and how important are the biological differences among us? Are we descended from Neanderthals? How many races of people are there? Were Native Americans the first settlers of the New World? How can we tell if Thomas Jefferson had a child with Sally Hemings? Through an engaging examination of issues such as these, and using non-technical language, Reflections of Our Past shows how anthropologists use genetic information to test theories and define possible answers to fundamental questions in human history. By looking at genetic variation in the world today, we can reconstruct the recent and remote events and processes that created the variation we see, providing a fascinating reflection of our genetic past. Reflections of Our Past is a W. W. Howells Book Prize Winner and Choice Outstanding Academic Title.
A Companion to Biological Anthropology The discipline of biological anthropology—the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives—has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human. A Companion to Biological Anthropology provides a timely and comprehensive account of the foundational concepts, historical development, current trends, and future directions of the discipline. Authoritative yet accessible, this field-defining reference work brings together 37 chapters by established and younger scholars on the biological and evolutionary components of the study of human development. The authors discuss all facets of contemporary biological anthropology including systematics and taxonomy, population and molecular genetics, human biology and functional adaptation, early primate evolution, paleoanthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleogenetics. Updated and expanded throughout, this second edition explores new topics, revisits key issues, and examines recent innovations and discoveries in biological anthropology such as race and human variation, epidemiology and catastrophic disease outbreaks, global inequalities, migration and health, resource access and population growth, recent primate behavior research, the fossil record of primates and humans, and much more. A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition is an indispensable guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, and related disciplines.
The untold story of the rise of the new scientific field of ancient DNA research, and how Jurassic Park and popular media influenced its development Ancient DNA research—the recovery of genetic material from long-dead organisms—is a discipline that developed from science fiction into a reality between the 1980s and today. Drawing on scientific, historical, and archival material, as well as original interviews with more than fifty researchers worldwide, Elizabeth Jones explores the field’s formation and explains its relationship with the media by examining its close connection to de-extinction, the science and technology of resurrecting extinct species. She reveals how the search for DNA from fossils flourished under the influence of intense press and public interest, particularly as this new line of research coincided with the book and movie Jurassic Park. Ancient DNA is the first account to trace the historical and sociological interplay between science and celebrity in the rise of this new research field. In the process, Jones argues that ancient DNA research is more than a public-facing science: it is a celebrity science.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story—and fascinating mystery—of how humans migrated to the Americas. ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution. 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed. A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"
A Companion to Paleopathology offers a comprehensive overview of this rapidly growing sub- field of physical anthropology. Presents a broad overview of the field of paleopathology, integrating theoretical and methodological approaches to understand biological and disease processes throughout human history Demonstrates how paleopathology sheds light on the past through the analysis of human and non-human skeletal materials, mummified remains and preserved tissue Integrates scientific advances in multiple fields that contribute to the understanding of ancient and historic diseases, such as epidemiology, histology, radiology, parasitology, dentistry, and molecular biology, as well as archaeological, archival and historical research. Highlights cultural processes that have an impact on the evolution of illness, death and dying in human populations, including subsistence strategies, human environmental adaptations, the effects of malnutrition, differential access to resources, and interpersonal and intercultural violence
