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We may not be related to Neanderthals, but we ARE related to small sea creatures called sea urchins! The Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Project (SUGSP) Consortium (yes, there is such a thing) has announced that they have succeeded in decoding the DNA of the sea urchin…and found it surprisingly similar to ours.

They found more than 814 million DNA “letters,” spelling out 23,300 genes. Nearly 10,000 of the genes were scrutinized by an international consortium of 240 scientists from 11 countries. According to biologist Judith Venuti, “Unraveling the sea urchin genome has yielded striking similarities and surprising differences between sea urchins and humans.”
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We recently wrote about how worry can actually make you sick, and it turns out that fear can make you fat?if you’re too afraid of crime in your neighborhood to go out and take a walk.

Older adults living in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods have an increased risk of obesity and this may be due to fear caused by living in areas characterized by crime, disorder and neglect.

Epidemiologist Thomas Glass says, “There is almost a twofold higher chance that you?re going to be obese if you live in the worst neighborhoods. Moreover, the risk is not something that can be explained away by personal variables such as dietary intake, tobacco use and household wealth.”
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From time to time, we report on what scientists are thinking about the films we see. Why is the new Bond film called Casino Royale instead of James Bond 21 (which is what it actually is)? Are movie stars getting so skinny that this sets a dangerous precedent for women with incipient eating disorders? Scientists have good answers to these seemingly show-biz questions.

Researchers have decided that movie watchers prefer sequels with names, rather than just numbers (a style that was popular a few years ago). In LiveScience.com, Jeanna Bryner quotes from the Journal of Consumer Research that, “Hollywood has begun branding movies in a similar way that consumer packaged goods manufacturers brand their products.”
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Three years ago, we reported on evidence that Cro-Magnon man did not interbreed with Neanderthals in order to produce modern humans, as so many scientists have speculated. Now there’s even more proof that the two species went their separate ways, until Neanderthals died out.

The most thorough study to date of Neanderthal DNA, gleaned from ancient bones, points to an early human-Neanderthal split. While the two species have a common ancestry, they do not share much else after evolving their separate ways. This new study also finds no evidence of a genetic mixture between Neanderthals and humans.
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