SPAAM-communityMay 11
What #pathogens did people carry before European contact? Ancient DNA 🧬from a #Bolivian #mummy 🪦 reveals #Streptococcus pyogenes 🦠, pushing its presence in the Americas back centuries!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71603-9
#MetagenomicsMonday #SPAAM #aDNA #ancientgenomics #pathogengenomics #virulence
An ancient genome of Streptococcus pyogenes from a pre-Columbian Bolivian mummy - Nature Communications

Streptococcus pyogenes is a human pathogen responsible for a range of diseases. Here, the authors reconstruct an ancient S. pyogenes genome from a pre-Columbian Bolivian mummy, supporting that the pathogen circulated in the Americas prior to the European contact.

Nature
Hacker NewsApr 17

Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01204-5

#HackerNews #ancientgenomics #human #evolution #evolutionarybiology #geneticresearch

Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

Data from more than 15,000 ancient people reveal natural selection of hundreds of genes linked to immunity, skin tone, behaviour and other traits.

SPAAM-communityMar 2
In today’s #MetagenomicsMonday: a study combining palaeopathology 🦴 and pathogen genomics 🧬🦠 revisits a presumed tuberculosis case from the North Caucasus. Instead of M. tuberculosis, ancient DNA of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae was recovered and a high-quality genome reconstructed (clade II, serotype 5), pointing to a different/more complex infectious scenario.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-37742-1
#SPAAM #aDNA #palaeopathology #pathogen #erysipeloid #genome #pathogengenome #ancientgenomics #metagenomics
Kolokoko Bird!Jun 16, 2021

Ten years of ancient genome analysis has taught scientists 'what it means to be human'

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-ten-years-ancient-genome-analysis.html

Lots of interesting stuff in this article. My favourite bit is this:

"We were taught in school that people would stay put until the population grew to a level where the resources were exhausted. But we found people were spreading around the world just to explore, to discover, to have adventures.”

#history #archaeology #DNA #genome #AncientGenomics #science #human

Ten years of ancient genome analysis has taught scientists 'what it means to be human'

A ball of 4,000-year-old hair frozen in time tangled around a whalebone comb led to the first ever reconstruction of an ancient human genome just over a decade ago.