DNA From Ancient Child reveals new group of Native Americans: the ancient Beringians

An illustration of the Upward Sun River camp in what is now Interior Alaska. Illustration: Illustration by Eric S. Carlson in collaboration with Ben A. Potter

Researchers have managed to sequence the genome of an ancient child that was descended from one of the original founding humans to have stepped foot in the Americas. A baby girl who lived and died in what is now Alaska at the end of the last ice age belonged to a previously unknown group of ancient Native Americans, according to DNA recovered from her bones. The child, a mere six weeks old when she died, was found in a burial pit next to the remains of a stillborn baby, perhaps a first cousin, during excavations of an 11,500-year-old residential camp in Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska. The remains were discovered in 2013, but a full genetic analysis has not been possible until now. Researchers tried to recover ancient DNA from both of the infants but succeeded only in the case of the larger individual. They had expected her genetic material to resemble modern northern or southern lineages of Native Americans, but found instead that she had a distinct genetic makeup that made her a member of a separate population.

The history of ancient humans in the Americas has always been somewhat obscure. Obviously, Native Americans have been present in the continent for thousands of years, and genetic evidence shows that they likely descended from humans who once lived in Eastern Asia and Siberia around 20-30,000 years ago. But there is scant physical evidence to support many of these theories, and the archaeological evidence that does exist is often confusing. For example, there are sites dated to around 13,000 years old in the north east of the Americas where many think the first humans to populate the continent would have first occurred, but there are also sites dating to around 15,000 years old in South America, thousands of kilometers away. This has tended to confuse the picture of human migration. 

 The most commonly accepted theory is that the peopling of America occurred during the Pleistocene, when the sea levels were lower and the Beringia land bridge connected Asia and North America. It is generally thought that by 11,000 years ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum, the land bridge was once again submerged and the two landmasses were separated. The genetic evidence now retrieved from Alaska backs this up, implying that when Beringia was still high and dry, a population of ancient humans originally from Siberia moved into the land. These people then became largely genetically isolated as the Ancient Beringians, before then moving across the bridge into the Americas. The land bridge then sank beneath the waves and the first Americans were cut off, though perhaps other peoples may occasionally have turned up by boat.

The team actually found the remains of two infants, but could sequence the entire genome of only one. Ben Potter

But there is another possibility. Ben Potter, an archaeologist on the team from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, suspects that the Beringians split from the ancestors of other Native Americans in Asia before both groups made their way across the land bridge to North America in separate migrations. “The support for this scenario is pretty strong,” he said. “We have no evidence of people in the Beringia region 20,000 years ago.” The families who lived at the ancient camp may have spent months there, Potter said. Excavations at the site, known as Upward Sun River, have revealed at least three tent structures that would have provided shelter. 

The two babies were found in a burial pit beneath a hearth where families cooked salmon caught in the local river. The cremated remains of a third child, who died at the age of three, were found on top of the hearth at the abandoned camp. Connie Mulligan, an anthropologist at the University of Florida, said the findings pointed to a single migration of people from Asia to the New World, but said other questions remained. “How did people move so quickly to the southernmost point of South America and settle two continents that span a huge climatic and geographic range?” she said. David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University, said the work boosted the case for a single migration into Alaska, but did not rule out alternatives involving multiple waves of migration. 

He added that he was unconvinced that the ancient Beringian group split from the ancestors of other Native Americans 20,000 years ago, because even tiny errors in scientists’ data can lead to radically different split times for evolutionary lineages. “While the 19,000-21,000 year date would have important implications if true and may very well be right, I am not convinced that there is compelling evidence that the initial split date is that old,” he said.

The child, a mere six weeks old when she died, was found in a burial pit next to the remains of a stillborn baby, perhaps a first cousin, during excavations of an 11,500-year-old residential camp in Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska. The remains were discovered in 2013, but a full genetic analysis has not been possible until now.

Researchers tried to recover ancient DNA from both of the infants but succeeded only in the case of the larger individual. They had expected her genetic material to resemble modern northern or southern lineages of Native Americans, but found instead that she had a distinct genetic makeup that made her a member of a separate population.

NASA Has Found Another Planetary System Many Planets As Our Own

Thanks to a novel artificial intelligence technique in partnership with Google, NASA has discovered a planetary system that has as many planets as our own. It’s the most planets in one system we’ve ever found elsewhere.

The system is called Kepler-90, a Sun-like star 2,545 light-years from Earth. We already knew about seven planets in this system, but thanks to this new technique, we’ve found an eighth. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

“The Kepler-90 star system is like a mini version of our solar system,” said Andrew Vanderburg from the University of Texas at Austin, one of the scientists behind the discovery, in a statement. “You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer.”

Kepler has been looking for planets since 2009, and has found thousands so far. But there are many more hiding in its data that we aren’t able to confirm yet.

Thanks to this new method, we can do better. Kepler finds planets by detecting the dip in light caused as they pass in front of their star – known as the transit method.

But sometimes it’s not clear if these signals come from planets. They can appear weak, and thus might be a passing star or something else, so the planet can’t be confirmed. Using a Google neural network, NASA has been able to sift through this data more successfully.

Kepler-90 compared to our own Solar System. NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Just as we expected, there are exciting discoveries lurking in our archived Kepler data, waiting for the right tool or technology to unearth them,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division in Washington. “This finding shows that our data will be a treasure trove available to innovative researchers for years to come.” 

Kepler-90 is the discovery highlighted in this announcement, although it’s thought many more planets could be found. This planet is called Kepler-90i, and it’s thought to be a sizzling hot, rocky planet that orbits its star every 14.4 days.

The neural network used here found other planets too. One is a planet in the Kepler-80 system, 1,100 light-years from Earth. It’s called Kepler-80g, and it’s similar in size to Earth.

"Machine learning really shines in situations where there is so much data that humans can't search it for themselves,” Christopher Shallue from Google, one of the other scientists involved, said.

Thanks to this new technique, scientists will be hoping to find more planets hiding in the Kepler data. Kepler is currently in the second phase of its mission, called K2, after two of its four reaction wheels failed. But there are plenty more discoveries for it to make.

This You Need To Start Blogging For Big

This You Need To Start Blogging For BigA quick search on the net for blogs and you find that not only are the general public using them as a way of electronically noteing their feelings and thoughts but also businesses are using them as an informal way of updating their clients of products and services. It seems that when it comes to blogging big businesses and small businesses are on the same playing field. 

A blog offers any business the opportunity to communicate with employees, and customers, sharing knowledge and expertise. As you may or may not have realised is that blogging is a big plus and if used correctly can provide an interesting and effective way to increase brand identity and awareness. My personal web design company (Able Net Design) has seen an increase in interest of blogs and its use with our own customers. It seems that everyone is jumping on this new system, as a cheap and effective way to spread the word. A quick google search for the term "business blogging" returns 11,200,000 results. There are even companies poping up everywhere as blog consultants, which can help set up a blog that you will get the most out of. 

Is blogging really as good as everyone thinks, well i am certainly having some fun with it and am sure if it didn't work it would have died by now. But what are people blogging about? Well people are blogging about everything and anything and there are some reports that people are making a nice little income from it aswell. Income off a blog how can that be? That is the same question i asked when i first heard about it. I would have thought that the process to making money of a blog would have been quite involved however I have discovered that it is quite the opposite. It seems that with the use of strategicly placed advertisements and a large amount of traffic bloggers are utilising the paid to click type of advertisements, to earn profits. 

Now i thought this has to be tested, so i impletemented a few different paid to click advertisements on my blogs to see how they go. It took me little over 10 minutes to change my blog templates and implement these advertisements. So with the ads up and running i decided to continue posting as usual to see what happens. Well i can say that im not going to get rich quick. However i assume that the more traffic you have the more clicks you will get, and since my blogs are relatively new i didn't have high hopes. But all in all it is a fun way to keep the bloging interesting. 

The blogging revolution just seems to keep on getting bigger and bigger with Google and Yahoo releasing its on Blog search engine and others like Technorati which would be the most well known blog search engine. Technorati claims to be tracking 20.1 million sites  , and if you view their top 100 blogs you will see that the topics which are being blogged about are endless and unique in every category you could think of. For more information on blogs and how you can get one check out our site (ablenetdesign.com) or read my online marketing blog (ablenetdesign.blogspot.com) there will be more information on blogs posted in their as time goes on im sure of it.

Stay Motivated & Increase Your Traffic!

So you have a blog, you’re got your theme all pretty and how you like it, and you’re publishing posts. Everything is great, but… where are the readers? Here are some tips to stay motivated and increase traffic, too.

• HAVE FUN! If you aren’t enjoying blogging and it becomes a chore, stop. Blogging should be fun, and it will show through in your posts.
• Don’t feel pressured to post every thirty seconds – save it for when you have something to say. That said, try to be consistent – once a week, once a day, one a month around the same time – whatever. Consistency = people coming back.
• Don’t expect to have a million readers immediately and don’t be discouraged if you don’t. It takes time to gain readership, but they will come if you keep up the awesomeness.
• Blogging is time consuming and there is no way around that; spend time on your posts so that readers get what they deserve. Quality over quantity.
• Want to drive more traffic to your blog? Participate in the community of similar bloggers to get your name out there and get more readers. Comment on other blogs, do guest posts, talk to others (like me!) on Twitter (and use hashtags so more people see your tweets – #fitblog and #runchat are good healthy living ones, and #rdchat is good if you are an RD but there are plenty more!), post links to your blog on your personal Facebook page (and think about starting a page for your blog, too!), share photos on Instagram and Pinterest, and participate in contests/movements/online bake sales/etc. The more you interact, the more others will start to notice you!

Favorite Plugins

Plugins are to your blog like apps are to your smart phone. They add fun features to your site! Here are a few of my favorites. To install a plugin, simply go to your WordPress dashboard, and click on “Plugins” on the left, then select “Add New.” Search by any of these by name (use the exact name I list), click install, and then follow their instructions for setting it up!

1. Alpine PhotoTile for Instagram – This plugin will allow you to add a cute little feed of your recent Instagram photos to your sidebar. Look on the right of my blog to see mine for an example!
2. Comment Reply Notification – Have you ever left a comment or question on a blog and then forgotten to go back and check for the answer? I do this all the time. This plugin will email someone if their comment receives a response, so the conversation can continue!
3. Facebook Like Box – This plugin will allow you to add a Facebook “like” box for your blog’s Facebook page onto your sidebar. To see mine, look right! :)
4. Image Widget – This plugin makes it easy to add photos/images to your sidebar.
5. nRelate Related Conent – This plugin adds links to related posts at the end of each post. To see it in action on my site, click over to my homepage, click on one of the posts, and scroll down to just above the comment section. It’s the “You may also like:” thing with other posts below it. (I have it set so it doesn’t show on pages, just on posts, which is why it’s not showing over on this page).
6. Pinterest Badge – This plugin will allow you to add a cute feed of recent Pinterest pins to your sidebar. Again, to see mine, look over to the right!
7. Pinterest Pin It Button For Images – This plugin will display a pin it button on your images when someone hovers their mouse over them. To see how it works, hover your mouse over the image at the start of this post!
8. Shareaholic – This plugin adds social bookmarking icons at the end of your posts. To see it in action on my site, click over to my homepage, click on one of the posts, and scroll down to just above the comment section. It’s the thing that says “Share and Enjoy!” with an arrow to all the social media sharing icons. (I have it set so it doesn’t show on pages, just on posts, which is why it’s not showing over on this page).
9. Twitter Widget Pro – This plugin will allow you to add a feed of your recent tweets from Twitter onto your sidebar. To see mine, look right!

Additional Tips & Blogging Ethics

• When you try another blogger’s recipe and post about it on your site, simply share a link to their original recipe (and include your own original photos and comments). Don’t repost the recipe on your site – it’s like plagiarizing in the blog world! Not cool.
• If you significantly alter someone else’s recipe (e.g. change at least 3 major ingredients – not just things like adding walnuts or a little more cinnamon), then you can post your updated version, but it’s still good to link to the original recipe (e.g. Adapted from: RECIPE NAME).
• When you do start working with brands, be sure to be clear about your relationship with them when you post. If you’re talking about a product, for example, you should say if you got it for free. Being transparent is a good thing!
• Wondering how everyone adds text to their photos (like I did in the image at the start of this post)? Or creates cute Pinterest-worthy workout graphics? Or makes picture collages? The secret is an awesome website called PicMonkey! It’s free to use the basic version and no registration is required. Try it out! :)

Five Tips for Better Blogging

1. Use Simple Language

If there's one lesson I learnt as a writer that stuck, it was: K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple, Stupid. Blogs are not the place to show of your enormous and incomprehensible vocabulary — this isn't a PHD. Your blog is where people come to learn, whether it's about you, Ferrari engines, or how to make scones. You need to be able to speak to people in a way that the 'average Joe' understands. After visiting your blog, I should know something that I didn't know before and this learning experience shouldn't have been a massive effort. Keep your sentences concise. Keep your language simple and to-the-point. Keep your tone casual. Your readers will appreciate it.

2. Know Your Audience

The second most important lesson I've learnt as a writer is: know your audience. If you don't know who you're writing for, you shouldn't be writing. Knowing who your audience is, is a power. It allows you to keep your blog and writing relevant. Nothing is worse than slaving away in front of the computer and having no one read your work. If you know who you're writing for, you know how to target them and what they're interested in reading — you can then tweak your content to suit these interests. Blogging is a way that you can give your loyal followers something for free. The most successful businesses use their blogs to show 'behind the scenes' of their campaigns and products — their audience is already interested in their products, so blogging about how they were created, or the inspiration behind them is an added extra that their clients are bound to love.

3. Blog Regularly

The best blogs are consistent. A post should be published on the same day, at the same time every week — perhaps multiple times a week. This should be done for a number of reasons:

• Your readers know when to check back and discover new content.
• Shows that your brand is reliable.
• Great for Google algorithms and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

First and foremost, you're blogging for your readers, and they need to know your routine. For example: every Tuesday at 9am, my online literary magazine posts a 'Writing Prompt', because of our consistency, our readers know to check back once a week for this particular feature, which means we have more and more returning visitors.

Blogging consistently does something wonderful for the reputation of your brand as well: It shows you're reliable. There's nothing more valuable to a reader than trust. Use your blog to prove to your readers/clients that you're trustworthy. This will take you, your blog and your business a long way.

The more you update your blog, the more Google knows to revisit and index your pages. Your pages need to be indexed in order to come up in people's search results. If you post regularly, Google's bots enter into a routine, where they will continually come back to index your articles.

4. Remember Your S.E.O.

For those of you who don't know SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It's all about making your blog/website easy to find when searching for various terms in search engines such as Google. This is not something that should dictate your blog (it's more commonly used on websites themselves), but it's something that should be given some thought, because it can seriously benefit you. Have a think about what your blog is saying. Is it recommending products? Is it based around a particular field or industry? No matter what your topic, it will have 'Keywords'. Keywords are the terms that people most search for in Google and other search engines. You can look up how often a term is searched for a month with free online tools such as Google Adwords (all you need is a current gmail account to use their keyword planner), and you can also use Ubersuggest (you don't have to sign up for anything) to find out what variations of your keywords are searched for. I used the Google Adwords Keyword Planner to find out that the term 'literary devices' is searched for 74,000 times a month. I then popped over to Ubersuggest which showed me a list of terms that include 'literary devices' that are also commonly searched for:

5. Say it With Images

It doesn't matter what you're blogging about — chances are an image will benefit your post. More than anything, an image gives your readers' eyes a breath of fresh air amidst huge chunks of text. It allows them to have a brief break, increasing the likelihood that they'll continue reading. An image will also create more visual interest on the page — you're not reading a novel, you're reading a blog post — sometimes you need a splash of colour, or a funky quote to jazz the page up a bit.

Including an image also increases the chances that your blog post will be shared across a broader scope of social media platforms such as Pinterest and Tumblr. Finally, using images also has hidden benefits... If you optimise your images to suit the keyword of your post (include the keyword in your image filename, title and caption), you are creating a richer post, and search engines love it.

How To See The Geminid Meteor Shower

Look alive, people. One of the best meteor showers of the year is happening tonight, and you should definitely check it out if you can.

Yes, the Geminid meteor shower will be at its peak from tonight, Wednesday, December 13 into tomorrow, Thursday, December 14. Up to 120 meteors per hour will be visible. What’s more, the Moon shouldn’t pose much of a problem. Hooray!

Meteors from this shower originate from the Gemini constellation. From the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll want to look to the upper left of the constellation Orion in the southwestern sky to get the best view. In the Southern Hemisphere, look to the lower right of Orion.

While many major meteor showers peak in the morning, the Geminids will be visible from about 9pm EST (2am GMT). At this time they’ll be quite near the horizon, according to Sky & Telescope, but by 2am their radiant point will be overhead – so you’ll get a fantastic view then.

Of course, the meteors will appear all across the sky, but looking towards the radiant point gives you your best chance of spotting some. The numbers you’ll see will vary depending on nearby light pollution and, of course, cloud cover.

If you’re planning to sit out and observe them, make sure to wrap up warm. You’ll want to give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness to get the best view. Try and use a red light if you need to find a spot or whatever, as this will keep your eyes adjusted to the dark.

The Geminids are the result of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, as we fly through debris it leaves behind. The asteroid itself will actually be quite bright this time around as it's making a fairly close pass to our planet on December 16, so you should be able to spot it with a telescope.

People have watched the Geminid meteor showers for over 200 years, and thanks to a waning crescent Moon this year’s show should be particularly spectacular. If you get a chance, and you’ve got some clear skies, make sure you head out and have a watch.

Lindsey Vonn Suffers - Back Injures - World Cup Race

Back Injures pulls out of St. Moritz race "Lindsey Vonn"

Vonn later tweeted she had an "acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction. I got compressed on the 6th gate and my back seized up." Vonn said she would see how she responded to treatment overnight, but she tweeted again Sunday morning ahead of a second super-G: 

"Unfortunately I will not be able to race today. "I am extremely disappointed but my biggest goal this season is the Olympics and I need to take care of myself now so I can be ready for next week, and more importantly, for February."

Soon after Newsweek asked Fox News for comment on the article, the outlet changed the story's headline to "Lindsey Vonn suffers back injury in World Cup race" and deleted a tweet with the original headline, although that tweet is still archived. Fox News spokeswoman Jessica Jensen acknowledged the changes in an email to Newsweek, writing, "The headline was changed and the tweet was deleted." But Fox offered no comment on the changes. The text of the article appeared to be unaltered.

hopeful message to fans after lower back injury

lindsey vonn

✔@lindseyvonn

Looks like i have an acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction. I got compressed on the 6th gate and my back seized up. Rested and had a lot of therapy tonight. We will see how I feel tomorrow and then decide if I will race. Thanks for the support 

10:37 PM - Dec 9, 2017

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lindsey vonn

✔@lindseyvonn

Our @usskiteam doctor checked me out and no imaging is needed  just need the joint and the muscles to calm down so I can move again.

10:39 PM - Dec 9, 2017

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But she ended her updates with an uplifting message.

lindsey vonn

✔@lindseyvonn

Unfortunately I will not be able to race today. I am extremely disappointed but my biggest goal this season is the Olympics and I need to take care of myself now so I can be ready for next week, and more importantly, for February. As always, thank you for the well wishes 

10:50 AM - Dec 10, 2017

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MLB players and fans react to Shohei Ohtani picking the Angels

MLB players and fans react to Shohei Ohtani picking the Angels The Los Angeles Angels won the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes Friday, as the Japanese phenom chose to sign with the Angels over six other finalists. Ohtani’s new teammates were overjoyed by his decision: But not everyone was happy...

Vonn is hoping to compete in her fourth Olympics in February in PyeongChang, South Korea. She has 77 World Cup titles, the most by a female skier, but just two Olympic medals, both won at the 2010 Vancouver Games. 

She missed the 2014 Sochi Olympics entirely with a right knee injury suffered during a training crash. Earlier this week, Vonn drew attention by saying she would not be visiting the Trump White House with the rest of her Olympic teammates after the Games.

Lindsey Vonn : Facebook 

Lindsey Vonn : Instagram