terça-feira, fevereiro 16, 2010

Tut weakened by congenital illnesses dead by complications from the broken leg aggravated by severe brain malaria

JAMA will publish it tomorrow, the press conference is tomorrow but this appeared today.

"(...) Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, likely forcing him to walk with a cane, and died from complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his mummy.
 (...)
Speculation had long swirled over why the boy king died at such a young age. A hole in his skull long fueled speculation he was murdered, until a 2005 CAT scan ruled that out, finding the hole was likely from the mummification process. The scan also uncovered the broken leg.
The newest CAT scans and DNA tests revealed a pharaoh weakened by congenital illnesses finally done in by complications from the broken leg aggravated by severe brain malaria. The team said it isolated DNA of the malaria parasite — the oldest such discovery.

 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ga4G96HXif0cFiMzDdK5PGYqTthgD9DTBV302


"Press Conference to be held at Egyptian Museum"

http://www.drhawass.com/blog/press-release-press-conference-be-held-egyptian-museum

"The Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, will hold a press conference
on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:00 am in the Cairo Museum
to announce new discoveries surrounding the family of Tutankhamun
and the cause of the young king's death. (..) The study on the family
of Tutankhamun was conducted through the Egyptian Mummy
Project (EMP) headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the
SCA, and a team composed of Egyptian scientists from the National
Research Center, members from the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo
University, and two German DNA specialists. Dr. Zahi Hawass and
the scientists involved in the EMP's latest study submitted an article
to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), who
approved of the study's scientific method. The article will be
published on February 17
; the same day as the press conference.
The study was conducted inside two DNA laboratories which are
under the supervision of the Supreme Council of Antiquities; one is
located in the basement of the Cairo Museum, and another is in the
Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University. These are the only two
DNA laboratories exclusively aimed at the study of ancient mummies."

http://jama.ama-assn.org/    


He forgot to say that the specialist on ancient DNA, Dr. Angelique Corthals, was training the Egyptian scientists who did this latest study on Tutankhamun...

http://www.aspcorthals.net/Site/Short_Bio.html



2 comentários:

Anónimo disse...

Hello and thank you for the article. Does any of the new information list specific Y-chromosome markers that they found in the mummies? if so what were they?

Thank you.

Paula Veiga disse...

Yes. Quoting the article:

"Sixteen Y-chromosomal short tandem
repeats (DYS456, DYS389I,
DYS390, DYS389II, DYS458, DYS19,
DYS385, DYS393, DYS391, DYS439,
DYS635, DYS392, Y-GATA-H4,
DYS437, DYS438, DYS448) were amplified
according to the manufacturer’s
protocol using the AmpF\STR Yfiler
PCR amplification kit (Applied Biosystems,
Foster City, California). The Identifiler
kit and the AmpF\STR Minifiler
kit (Applied Biosystems) were used
for amplification of 8 polymorphic microsatellites
of the nuclear genome
(D13S317, D7S820, D2S1338, D21S11,
D16S539, D18S51, CSF1PO, FGA).