Tiny Creepy Crawlies Help Reveal Human History : Shots - Health News : NPR
▻http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/24/460029361/our-parasites-and-vermin-reveal-secrets-of-human-history
In an exploratory study published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers collected mites from the faces of about 70 people with different origins, most of them living in the U.S., and sequenced the mites’ mitochondrial DNA. They found that people from different continents harbor different varieties of mites on their faces. Even generations after a family leaves one geographic region for another, Trautwein and her colleagues found, their descendants can retain those original mite populations. Think of them as family heirlooms.