Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
Genetic study details complex ancestry of East Africa’s Swahili people
A study of centuries-old DNA has deciphered the complex ancestry of coastal East Africa’s Swahili people, revealing how a cosmopolitan and prosperous medieval civilization arose thanks in large part to women from Africa and men arriving from Persia.
Researchers said on Wednesday they examined the DNA of 80 people from five sites in Kenya and Tanzania dating to about 1250 to 1800 AD. More than half of the genetic input in many of them traced to female ancestors from Africa’s east coast while a significant contribution also came from Asia, of which about 90% came from men from Persia – modern Iran – and 10% from India.
Rare T-Rex skeleton to go under the hammer in Switzerland
Millions of years after dinosaurs ruled the Earth, the skeleton of a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex was introduced to the public in Switzerland on Wednesday ahead of its auction next month. The giant carnivore, named TRX-293 Trinity, is expected to fetch between 5 million ($5.43 million) and 8 million Swiss francs ($8.70 million) when it goes on sale in Zurich on April 18.
For T. rex and kin, it was a stiff upper lip, not a toothy grin
They probably did not smile, frown or snarl, but T. rex and its relatives almost certainly had the dinosaur equivalent of lips – a new finding by scientists that challenges popular depictions of these predators as having big nasty teeth sticking out of their mouths. Researchers said on Thursday three lines of evidence – the skull and jaw anatomy in the group called theropods that encompassed all the meat-eating dinosaurs, the wear patterns of their teeth and the relationship between tooth size to skull size – all indicated the presence of lip-like structures.
(With inputs from agencies.)