It had been thought that rice was domesticated in both India and China, but a new genetic study by Michael Purugganan of New York University suggests that all of the world’s domesticated rice originated in China some 9,000 years ago. “As rice was brought in from China to India by traders and migrant farmers, it likely hybridized extensively with local wild rice, so domesticated rice that we may have once thought originated in India actually has its beginnings in China,” he explained. 

Egypt’s foreign ministry is expected to request that Germany return the bust of Nefertiti. 

This article asks the question, “Once you have a mummified chicken, then what do you do with it?” 

Will Bowden of the University of Nottingham, other scholars, and members of the Southwell Town Council are fighting to keep a housing development away from the seventh- and eighth-century Roman remains that were first excavated in Nottinghamshire, England, in the 1950s. The site could hold the remains of one of the largest Roman villas in Britain. 

NPR has more information on the commercial salvage of a ninth-century shipwreck in Indonesian waters, and the controversial museum show concocted from its artifacts. 

A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that chimpanzees are self aware and can anticipate the impact of their actions on the environment around them. It had been thought that this ability belonged to humans alone.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, May 4, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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