BBC Focus

HUMANS CAUGHT

THE COMMON COLD

FROM CAMELS

Thisisenoughtogiveanyone

the hump: the first human to

ever suffer a common cold

caught it from a camel,

researchers at the University

Hospital of Bonn say. They

made the discovery while

studying Middle East

respiratory syndrome,

whichisalsopassedfrom

camels to humans.

WHAT WE

LEARNED

THIS MONTH

WHY WE NEED

TO PARTY

If you’re the sort that loves

nothing more than a good

ol’ knees-up, thank your

ancestors. Gathering in

groups and dancing was a

key way for early humans to

bond and ultimately prosper,

researchers from the

University of Montreal say.

YOUR BRAIN HAS

A‘PHYSICSENGINE’

It doesn’t matter whether

you understand Newton’s

laws of motion or not,

weallhavea‘physicsengine’

in our brains that allows us

to predict how physical

objects will behave, a team

at Johns Hopkins University

has found. It performs

real-time physics

calculations to help

coordinate our movements.

WE’VE ALREADY

USED UP THIS

YEAR’S RESOURCES

Well, this is depressing.

International climate

research organisation Global

Footprint Network has

reported that ‘Earth

OvershootDay’fellthisyear

on 8 August. This is the

day on which humanity

used up the Earth’s

resources for the year.

Despite being 5,300 years old, this outfit

probably wouldn’t look out of place as part of

one of the edgier catwalk shows at London

Fashion Week.

The clothes belonged to the Tyrolean Iceman,

or ‘Ötzi’, a mummy discovered in the Ötztal

Alps on the border of Italy and Austria in 1991.

The garments were stitched together from the

hides of at least five different animals, according

to a DNA analysis carried out at University

College Dublin.

The finding suggests that Neolithic people

were skilled tailors who selected different

animal skins based on their different properties,

the researchers say.“Given that there appears to

be pattern to the Iceman’s clothes assemblage, he

was a resourceful individual using all that was

available to him,” explained researcher

Niall O’Sullivan.

The leggings were made using goat leather, the

loincloth sheep leather, the shoelaces cow

leather, and the coat both sheep and goat leather,

which are all domesticated animals. However,

the hat was made from brown bear fur and the

quiver from roe deer hide, suggesting that Ötzi

was a hunter as well as a farmer.

Until now, scientists were unable to clearly

identify the specific materials used in the

Tyrolean Iceman’s clothing, thanks to their

advanced state of decay. However, by sequencing

the mitochondrial genomes, which contain DNA

transmitted exclusively through the female line,

they were able to target and magnify certain

strands to identify the different species.

These are some pretty cool threads

ANTHROPOLOGY

PHOTOS: ALI ERTWERK, INSTITUTE FOR MUMMIES AND THE ICEMAN

Ötzi’s clothes are

made from both

domesticated

and wild animals

OCTOBER 2016