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Scientists studying the human gut microbiome often analyze stool to measure what’s living in the gut. However, they were uncertain how well those samples represented the microbial make-up of the intestine. Reporting in , a team led by Curtis Huttenhower and Xochitl Morgan of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health used 16S sequencing to compare the microbial composition in stool with that found in the intestines of rhesus macaques. The team discovered that microbial communities found in feces correlated highly with those found in the large intestines and moderately with those of the small intestines, supporting the use of stool in microbiome studies.

The origins of Indo-European languages (which include English, Greek, Russian, Italian, Farsi, and Hindi, among others) are a subject of debate among linguists. Some think early Anatolian farmers introduced the languages to Europe during the Early Neolithic period. Others think the shift happened later and came from the steppe in modern Ukraine and southern Russia. Researchers led by Ó³»­´«Ã½ senior associate member David Reich sequenced the DNA of 69 ancient Europeans to reveal that an early German population shared 75 percent of its ancestry with a population of Russian steppe herders that lived 500 to 1,000 years before them. The results suggest a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from the eastern periphery around 4,500 years ago and lend new support for the steppe hypothesis. You can read in Nature and learn more in stories from  and to learn more.

Anemia affects nearly one-third of the global population. Much of this burden can be attributed to nutritional deficiencies, infections, and systemic etiologies, such as chronic kidney disease. But genetic disorders of hemoglobin, such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia, are also common causes, particularly among children. Understanding the basic biology of anemia could lead to clinically relevant findings. For this reason Ó³»­´«Ã½ associate member Vijay Sankaran and co-author Mitchell Weiss of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis) penned a for Nature Medicine that examined recent insights into how red blood cells are produced, the pathogenic mechanisms behind anemia, and a host of associated novel therapies.