Science
Related: About this forumOetzi the Iceman's nuclear genome gives new insights (BBC)
Last edited Tue Feb 28, 2012, 05:39 PM - Edit history (1)
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world's oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the "Iceman", whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.
Oetzi's full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.
It reveals that he had brown eyes, "O" blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.
They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.
Analysis of series of anomalies in the Iceman's DNA also revealed him to be more closely related to modern inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia than to populations in the Alps, where he was unearthed.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17191398
free abstract, paywall for full article: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n2/full/ncomms1701.html
It just goes to show you're never too old to have your genome sequenced.
Botany
(70,581 posts)good thing he was in europe with their health care system to take
care of him.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)aquart
(69,014 posts)Oh, my goodness, this is so cool!
What did he do about dairy?????
Warpy
(111,339 posts)Milk is horrible stuff.
What's fascinating is the Lyme disease. That explains a lot about his tats, they were therapeutic, likely, done to reduce pain. It also explains why he was carrying a medicine packet of herbs and mushrooms.
The more I read about the poor bastard, the sorrier I feel for him.
aquart
(69,014 posts)The tomb paintings had them sniffing that lotus because it was a painkiller.
eridani
(51,907 posts)As it does in some European and other populations. My DH discoverd at the age of 58 or so that it doesn't hang on forever, though, and so gave up milk.
Warpy
(111,339 posts)or me.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)We didn't have a source of milk until we invented farming and herding, and domesticated animals. Even then, milk was only a major dietary component in Northern Europe.
It should also be noted that pre-refrigeration, we had to process dairy into something else to keep it from spoiling. Usually cheese. And these processing steps could remove most of the lactose, resulting in food that lactose-intolerant people could eat.
Didn't know the cheese process dumped lactose. Just thought anybody up in the Alps was there with herds and flocks.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)The process to make, say, Cheddar or Mozzarella doesn't remove all of the lactose for example.