Ancient DNA is turning human evolution into a crime scene reconstruction, and one of the prime suspects is a herpesvirus that quietly slipped into our chromosomes and never left. By tracing this viral ...

Long before the Black Death killed millions across Europe in the Middle Ages, an earlier, more elusive version of the plague spread across much of Eurasia. For years, scientists were unsure how the ...

The droppings contain DNA, he thought, and perhaps, even after rain washes them away, some DNA might remain. And if it does ...

The Shroud of Turin is a 14.4-foot by 3.6-foot linen cloth bearing the faint, negative image of a crucified man. For centuries, millions have believed it to be the authentic burial shroud of Jesus of ...

Deep inside a handful of caves, scientists are pulling genetic secrets out of bones, teeth and even the surrounding dirt, and the results are upending what we thought we knew about our own species.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. DNA (illustrative). (photo credit: SHUTTERSTOCK) The genetic evidence is consistent with a father-daughter union, making it one of ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A glowing, digital double helix represents the billions of base pairs scientists analyze when sequencing ancient DNA. In 1976, ...

Researchers have reconstructed ancient herpesvirus genomes from Iron Age and medieval Europeans, revealing that HHV-6 has been infecting humans for at least 2,500 years. Some people inherited the ...

NHREF copy has bookplate: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Gift of Alan R. Kabat. ANTHMAI copy has bookplate: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Gift of Jayne H. Plank. Contents 1. Setting up an ...