DNA obtained from the bones and teeth of ancient Europeans who lived up to 34,000 years ago is providing insight into the origin of the often-disabling neurological disease multiple sclerosis, finding that genetic variants that now increase its risk once served to protect people from animal-borne diseases.

The findings stemmed from research involving ancient DNA sequenced from 1,664 people from various sites across Western Europe and Asia. These ancient genomes were then compared with modern DNA from the UK Biobank, comprising about 410,000 self-identified "white-British" people, and more than 24,000 others born outside the United Kingdom, to discern changes over time.

One striking discovery related to MS, a chronic disease of the brain and spinal cord that is considered an autoimmune disorder in which the body mistakenly attacks itself.

The researchers identified a pivotal migration event about 5,000 years ago at the start of the Bronze Age when livestock herders called the Yamnaya people moved into Western Europe from an area that includes modern Ukraine and southern Russia.

They carried genetic traits that at the time were beneficial, protective against infections that could arise from their sheep and cattle. As sanitary conditions improved over the millennia, these same variants increased MS risk. This helps explain, the researchers said, why Northern Europeans have the world's highest MS prevalence, double that of Southern Europeans.

You can read more in an article by Will Dunham published in the Reuters web site at: http://tinyurl.com/myzkpuc3.

Toronto police say the use of DNA alongside genetic genealogy has helped them identify a suspect in a cold case murder of a 47-year-old man in 1982.

On May 17, 1982, Kevin McBride died of multiple stab wounds inside of his apartment on Sheppard Avenue East near Markham Road, police said.

McBride was last seen two days before his body was discovered by officers who went to his apartment for a wellness check after he did not show up to dinner plans with friends, police said.

Det. Sgt. Steve Smith, with Toronto Police’s cold case unit, told Global News that McBride was an art dealer.

“It appears to us as though it was a robbery,” Smith said. “Obviously our victim had numerous pieces of art that were valuable. We know that the offender actually lived in the same place as the victim during a small portion of time.”

You can read more in an article by Gabby Rodrigues published in the globalnews.ca web site at: http://tinyurl.com/4xu456b5

Over the past year, the Armenian Museum of America’s Sound Archive program has taken a giant step forward. Each month, the Museum posts a handful of songs digitized and restored from its collection of 78 rpm records on its website along with a historical writeup about the artists. 

Along with more conventional musical recordings, some of the recordings touch on Armenian cultural, political and educational history, as well as the history of recording technologies. The program is sponsored by a generous grant from the SJS Charitable Trust.

The Museum hosted musicologist Ian Nagoski at its galleries to weave the story of the influential but largely forgotten soprano Zabelle Panosian, who was born in Bardizag and emigrated to Boston in 1907. Nagoski’s talk drew from his recently published book Zabelle Pansoian: I Am Servant of Your Voice, co-authored with Harout Arakelian and Harry Kezelian. 

In November, the Museum welcomed world-renowned composer and musician Ara Dinkjian. Speaking to a packed house, Dinkjian discussed the early history of some of the first recordings of Armenian music through the 1940s. The presentation built on his book and CD compilation Armenians in America on 78 rpm. 

“As we approach our fourth year presenting the Sound Archive at the Armenian Museum of America, we are proud to make this content available to people around the world,” says Executive Director Jason Sohigian. “For half a century now, the Museum’s collection of 78 rpm records has grown thanks to generous donors who have been entrusting us with their personal collections.”

You can read more in an article by  Jesse Kenas Collins published in the armenianweekly web site at: http://tinyurl.com/2uh3eap5

 

The International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) near Lincoln has been awarded £231,000 funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

The IBCC dedicates its work to the 58,000 men and women who lost their lives serving or supporting Bomber Command during World War Two.

Chief executive Nicky van der Drift said the money would be used to "make a number of improvements" to the site.

They include a new post-war digital archive and a learning centre.

Ms van der Drift added the centre was "thankful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund" and said she hoped "visitors will come to the centre to see the changes they're funding at work."

You can read more in an article by Sarah-May Buccieri published in the BBC web site at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-67917912. 

The Marietta-based 161st Military History Detachment held a ceremony Jan. 7 as the unit prepared to depart for a mobilization to the U.S. Army Central Command area of responsibility.

Their mission will be to collect primary source material necessary for historians to write the Army’s official history of operations in the area. Their collection portfolio would include documents, oral interviews, photographs and physical artifacts.

“After months of dedicated training, I have complete confidence in this team,” said Capt. Richard Hughes, commander, 161 Military History Detachment. “I am genuinely excited to see what we can accomplish.”

The 161st completed roughly four months of premobilization training to prepare for the approximately 9-month deployment to locations throughout Southwest Asia.

U.S. Army Central Command’s area of responsibility spans over 4 million square miles. It is populated by more than 560 million people from 25 ethnic groups, speaking 20 languages with hundreds of dialects and multiple religions that span national borders.

To prepare for this mission, the detachment completed premobilization training, a military history detachment course, a two-week historian course at Fort McNair and a week of training at Fort McNair and the Pentagon.

Additionally, the MHD completed a three-week validation exercise in Japan, collecting historical information on the 7th Infantry Division’s participation in Exercise Yama Sakura 85.

“As we set out on this deployment, we'll carry the valuable lessons from our training with us,” said Hughes. “We are fully prepared to document and preserve the history of the United States Army.”

The U.S. Army created the first military history teams during World War II to capture historical information about combat operations in European and Pacific theaters. Military history detachments have deployed in all successive wars to preserve the Army’s official history for study by future Soldiers, policymakers and the American people.

In January 2015, the 161st MHD mobilized to Kuwait to serve as the first MHD to support Operation Inherent Resolve.

The 161st mobilized again in December 2018 to Europe as the Army’s second MHD dedicated to Operation Atlantic Resolve. For nine months, the unit conducted operations in Germany, Poland and Georgia. They compiled a digital archive of more than 50 gigabytes of source material and over 300 oral interviews to aid future historians in writing the Army’s official history of Atlantic Resolve.

The 161st Military History Detachment organized as an element of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 78th Troop Command in September 2011. The unit attained federal recognition Nov. 22, 2011, at Clay National Guard Center in Marietta. The MHD is aligned under the 473rd Theater Public Affairs Support Element.

“It’s a huge mission, but I’m confident in each of their skills and their teamwork,” said Lt. Col. Jena Hutchison, commander, 473rd Theater Public Affairs Support Element. “I look forward to welcoming this team home after their successful deployment.”

Following a report last week, 2 On Your Side has been able to help positively identify a woman who could not confirm her name or remember where she came from. The woman had provided several names to a community outreach coordinator. It was a genetic genealogy specialist who saw the story and found her family.

Sandra Smith first met the woman in October and knew then she had to help.

"Her name is Brenda Lee Jones and she's from Little Rock, Arkansas," Smith said.

Smith called 2 On Your Side last week hoping that someone might recognize the woman. It was Shayna Landry who saw the story and helped connect the dots. Landry did her own digging as a genetic genealogy specialist, finding Brenda's family members and positively identified her.

"I was able to get in touch with her sister's daughter and her brother's daughter and they both confirmed she was their favorite Aunt Brenda," Landry said.

You can read more in an article by Brittany Weiss published in the wbrz.com web site at: http://tinyurl.com/3h6dunwm.

As investigators in Orange County, CA, Lauren Felix and Robert Taft have applied what they’ve learned as part of the University of New Haven’s Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy online graduate certificate program, solving two cold cases and providing the families of the victims with answers after more than four decades.

When Lauren Felix learned about the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo – better known as the Golden State Killer – in 2018, it sparked her interest in forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG). The case was especially relevant to Felix, a deputy for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in southern California, since the killer’s victims included individuals from within the department’s jurisdiction.

Felix says she was “blown away” when she learned how investigators had used FIGG to identify DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer. Inspired to learn how to use FIGG in her work, she began researching programs that could teach her. That’s how she found the FIGG online graduate certificate program at the University of New Haven.

Felix, who earned her graduate certificate as part of the program’s 2022 cohort, and her partner Robert Taft, a member of the 2023 cohort, have already applied what they’ve learned in the program. They recently solved two of their department’s cold cases, identifying victims who had been known as “John Does” for more than four decades.

“I’d done my own family tree, but I’d never done genealogy beyond that,” explained Felix, who has been a deputy for 12 years and who previously served as a crime analyst with the department. “The highlight of the University’s program for me was my internship with the DNA Doe project. It took everything I learned through the courses and put it together. I feel like that’s really where I began to grasp all the concepts we learned.”

‘They’re always thankful’

Drawing on their training in the program, Felix and Taft identified the remains of Lonnie Raymond Thomas, who was found in the spring of 1980 near an oil well in an unincorporated area in north Orange County. The case is now a homicide investigation.

Felix and Taft were grateful to be able to provide Thomas’s mother and half-sisters with answers regarding what had happened to Thomas more than four decades earlier.

“I can’t imagine being in the position of having a loved one or a family member simply disappear and never know what happened to them,” said Taft, who has been with the department for more than 30 years. “They’re always thankful for at least giving them some resolution for what happened to their loved ones.”

You can read more on an article by Renee Chmiel published in the University of New Haven web site at: https://www.newhaven.edu/news/blog/2024/figg-cold-case.php.

Many of us will have turned to the Internet to grieve and remember the dead — by posting messages on the Facebook walls of departed friends, for instance. Yet, we should give more thought to how the dead and dying themselves exert agency over their online presence, argues US sociologist Timothy Recuber in The Digital Departed.

In his expansive scholarly analysis, Recuber examines more than 2,000 digital texts, from blog posts by those who are terminally ill to online suicide notes and pre-prepared messages designed to be e-mailed to loved ones after someone has died. As he notes, “the digital data in this book are sad, to be sure, and they have often brought me to tears as I collected and analyzed them”. Yet, they are well worth delving into.

Recuber brings a fresh lens to studies of death culture by focusing on the feelings and intentions of the people who are dying, rather than those of the mourners. For example, he finds that a person’s sense of self can be altered through blogging about their illness. Writing freely helps people to come to terms with their deaths by making their suffering “legible and understandable”. Reflections on family and friends also reveal a sense of self-transformation. Indeed, many bloggers “attested to the positive value of the experience of a terminal illness, for the way it brought them closer to loved ones and especially for the wisdom it generated.”

This theme of self-transformation, which Recuber refers to as ‘digital reenchantment’, continues throughout the book. This terminology relates to the work of German sociologist Max Weber, who, at the turn of the twentieth century, argued that humans’ increasing ability to understand the world through science was robbing life of magic and mystery — a process he called disenchantment. When the dead seem to be resurrected through digital media, Recuber argues, they regain that mystery.

Recuber explores how X (formerly Twitter) hashtags can act as a form of collective online rememberance. He focuses on photos and stories shared in posts that use two hashtags, sparked by violent deaths of Black people in the United States: #IfIDieInPoliceCustody, in response to Sandra Bland’s death in prison in Waller County, Texas, in July 2015, and #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which remembers Michael Brown, who was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. The “thousands of individual micro-narratives” posted in these threads, Recuber writes, amount to a “collectively composed story affirming the value of all Black lives and legacies”. They are memorials for the lives that have already been lost and for those that might be in future.

You can read the entire article at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00016-9. 

Here is an interesting article written by Peter Wolinski and published in the tomsguide web site:

How to save Chrome downloads directly to Google Drive

Learning how to save files from Chrome directly to Google Drive is super useful, and will save you a lot of time if you regularly use both Chrome and Drive. 

If you regularly save images or files from the web, which you then upload to Google Drive for use across multiple devices, there's an extension that helps you completely cut out the middle steps — that is to say, it removes the need to save files to your physical device storage and then upload them to Google Drive.  You simply save the image or screenshot directly to a folder on your Google Drive.

This is particularly useful if you use Google Drive as your main storage platform and/or if you want to save physical storage space on the computer you're using. Personally, my job here at Tom's Guide requires me to regularly save down images to produce tutorials, and I often use Drive to transfer those images onto different devices. This extension saves me a lot of time — I just wish I'd found it earlier.

Here's how to save files from Chrome directly to Google Drive.

You can read the full article at: http://tinyurl.com/yjejnbnc.