Though evidently sharing many features of the common Third World experience, Ethiopia is distinguished from virtually all other African states (though not from a number of Asian ones) by a pattern of state formation and a consequent dynamic of potential change which are overwhelmingly indigenous rather colonial in origin. It is further distinguished from most (though again not all) Third World ...

1Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON; 2Canadian Blood Services, Toronto, ON; 3Division of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University & University Hospital Blood Centre, Lund, Sweden; 4Magen David Adom National Blood Services, Ramat Gan, Israel; 5Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto,...

The administrative director of a Swedish symphony orchestra contacted the authors in their capacities as consultants to obtain professional help regarding various problems in the orchestra. The primary reason for this contact was that the working climate, which had been quite bad for a long time, had deteriorated even more. There were frequent conflicts between the chief conductor and members o...

A novel method of library construction that takes advantage of a single-stranded DNA ligase has been recently described and used to generate high-resolution genomes from ancient DNA samples. While this method is effective and appears to recover a greater fraction of endogenous ancient material, there has been no direct comparison of results from different library construction methods on a diver...

Deep-sea subsurface sediments are the most important archives of marine biodiversity. Until now, these archives were studied mainly using the microfossil record, disregarding large amounts of DNA accumulated on the deep-sea floor. Accessing ancient DNA (aDNA) molecules preserved down-core would offer unique insights into the history of marine biodiversity, including both fossilized and non-foss...

Current evidence suggests that pigs were first domesticated in Eastern Anatolia during the ninth millennium cal BC before dispersing into Europe with Early Neolithic farmers from the beginning of the seventh millennium. Recent ancient DNA (aDNA) research also indicates the incorporation of European wild boar into domestic stock during the Neolithization process. In order to establish the timing...

Herbaria archive a record of changes of worldwide plant biodiversity harbouring millions of specimens that contain DNA suitable for genome sequencing. To profit from this resource, it is fundamental to understand in detail the process of DNA degradation in herbarium specimens. We investigated patterns of DNA fragmentation and nucleotide misincorporation by analysing 86 herbarium samples spannin...

The mitochondrial genome has been the traditional focus of most research into ancient DNA, owing to its high copy number and population-level variability. Despite this long-standing interest in mitochondrial DNA, it was only in 2001 that the first complete ancient mitogenomic sequences were obtained. As a result of various methodological developments, including the introduction of high-throughp...

“Constructing an island for birds is the best demonstration of the environmental sensibility here in landlocked Kars. Beside providing a haven for breeding birds, this island will promote Kars and Lake Kuyucuk,” he said. “We have so far recorded 206 species of birds at Kuyucuk, sometimes exceeding 40,000 individuals at once,” he said. The reedbeds around the lake that provided shelter and nesti...