The genetically modified mice also had unusually high levels of neural tube problems, defects in the developing spinal cord. Such birth defects, which produce spina bifida, where the spinal cord doesn’t close, and anencephaly, where parts of the brain and skull are missing, are fairly common in humans, affecting as many as one in 1000 newborns.

Indeed, Xia and his colleague found that human embryonic stem cells make two versions of the TBXT messenger RNA (mRNA), one longer and one shorter

A wealth of primate genomes has been sequenced in recent years, so he started to search for any ape-specific changes in genes known to play a role in tail development. In a gene called TBXT, he found a strong suspect, a short DNA insertion called an Alu element that was present in all great apes but missing in other primates.

Now, researchers may have unearthed a simple genetic change that led to our abbreviated back end: an itinerant piece of DNA that leapt into a new chromosomal home and changed how great apes make a key developmental protein.

The Antiquities Act, which was intended to protect the cultural resources of the United States by creating a permitting process for archaeological excavation and establishing punishments for looting, in effect further reified the authority that anthropologists held over Native American material culture, including human remains.…In effect [the Antiquities Act] turned Native American human remains into archaeological resources and the property of the federal government. (Daehnke & Lonetree 2011, p. 90)

It is difficult to witness firsthand the way ancestral remains have been treated—sorted into trays by body part; permanently marked and labeled with numbers, offensive words, or the university's name; wired together or encased in plaster for hanging or easy display. Yet there is also something incredibly powerful in witnessing such things, then working in a meticulous, loving way to care for those ancestors and assist in bringing them home for reburial. Such is the difficult work in bearing witness in repatriation—carrying these visual memories, soundscapes, and past practices while working in partnership to bring repatriations and reburials to completion.

Over the last three decades, however, a substantial literature has been published on (a) historical practices and legislative histories; (b) legal analyses and questions of implementation; (c) philosophy, ethics, and values; (d) ethnographic studies and analyzing practice; (e) reflexive considerations; and (f) new, old

. The rule established a hierarchy of rights to these remains, and it requires museums and agencies to consult with tribes and return remains and belongings to tribes that claimed them, unless the institution can demonstrate that it has right of possession. These regulations were intensively criticized by some (Birkhold 2011) and generally supported by others (Niesel 2011, Tsosie 2012). Dumont (2011) argued that archaeological critiques were self-serving and ignored NAGPRA's legislative history