ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

A new population of polar bears documented on the southeast coast of Greenland use glacier ice to survive despite limited access to sea ice. This small, genetically distinct group of polar bears could be important to the future of the species in a warming world.

An analysis of ancient DNA from a 100,000-year-old polar bear has revealed that extensive hybridization between polar bears and brown bears occurred during the last warm interglacial period in the Pleistocene, leaving a surprising amount of polar bear ancestry in the genomes of all living brown bears.

Researchers have identified and reconstructed the first ancient genome of E. coli, using fragments extracted from the gallstone of a 16th century mummy.

A new study has unraveled the earliest evidence for domestication of a fruit tree, researchers report. The researchers analyzed remnants of charcoal from the Chalcolithic site of Tel Zaf in the Jordan Valley and determined that they came from olive trees. Since the olive did not grow naturally in the Jordan Valley, this means that the inhabitants planted the tree intentionally about 7,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have located a unique Viking Age shipyard site at Birka on Björkö in Lake Mälaren. The discovery challenges previous theories about how the maritime activities of the Viking Age were organized.