Forensic and Genetic Research

The paper introduces AncestryGrapher, a toolkit to visualize global and local ancestry inferences from RFMix2, applied to the Mozabite Berber population.

The paper evaluates recombination rates of microhaplotypes using 1000 Genomes Project family data to improve likelihood ratio calculations in forensic kinship analysis.

The paper models the demographic history of North African genomes, finding a recent soft split divergence between Arab and Amazigh populations and a back-to-Africa origin.

ngsBriggs estimates postmortem DNA damage using a fast regression method, outperforming existing tools in speed and accuracy for ancient DNA authentication.

This paper develops an imputation-based method for predicting eye, hair, and skin colors from low coverage ancient DNA, showing it works effectively even with very low genome coverage.

This paper introduces a pooled testing method for sedimentary DNA analysis, reducing costs and lab time by up to 70% while maintaining aDNA signal detection.

Ancient DNA from 181 North Eurasian foragers traces a stable west-to-east ancestry gradient and ties Yakutia_LNBA ancestry, with Y-haplogroup N, to Uralic speakers and Seima-Turbino metallurgy.

This study benchmarks haplotype inference methods on ancient DNA by simulating aDNA data and shows that accurate phasing is possible even for very ancient individuals with sufficient contamination control and read depth.

The paper derives an analytical formula for the distribution of distances between heterozygous sites in diploid species to infer demographic history without simplifying assumptions.

Orchestra improves local ancestry inference, revealing admixture patterns in Latin Americans, Ashkenazi Jews, and selection signals in British populations.

The paper uses genetic data to show sex-biased admixture patterns in South Africa due to colonial migration, with European males and Khoe-San females contributing disproportionately to different regions.

The paper analyzes complete mitogenomes from 60 Mexican Indigenous groups to reveal demographic history and shared genetic connections.

The paper uses ancient DNA and genomic data to trace the genetic contributions of ancient farmer and steppe pastoralist lineages to the paternal genetic diversity of modern Chinese populations.

This paper introduces ALFDA, a machine learning method that improves identification of fine-scale genetic structure and preserves geogenetic distances better than existing methods.

The paper analyzes genome-wide data from 52 ancient individuals in Cambridgeshire to show low genetic ancestry differentiation and limited genetic relatedness during the Roman occupation, with modern genetic patterns emerging after the Roman period.

The paper constructs population-specific recombination maps for Native Hawaiians to improve the accuracy of genomic scans for positive selection.

This paper introduces a Bayesian framework for inferring time-varying selection from ancient DNA data, improving upon previous methods by addressing issues with allele age dependencies.

This study analyzes ancient DNA from LBK Neolithic sites to show genetic differences between eastern and western LBK populations, with evidence of patrilocality and no evidence of male-biased WHG admixture.

This study analyzes 796 Tai-Kadai genomes to uncover genetic adaptations and evolutionary history, revealing Malaria resistance and population structure in TK-speaking groups.

This paper evaluates the Li and Stephens haplotype-copying model's performance on ancient DNA by using forward-simulated data and a constant-sized population model, finding it robust for haplotypes up to 900,000 years old.

The paper traces the evolutionary history of the CCR5delta32 deletion using ancient and modern genomes, finding it originated at least 7,000 years ago in Western Eurasia and underwent positive selection.

This study uses ancient DNA to show that present-day Albanians mainly descend from Early Medieval inhabitants of Albania, with some admixture from East European groups.

SNVstory infers sub-continental ancestry using machine learning models and evaluates its accuracy against self-reported ethnicity and race in a clinical dataset.

This study uses multi-locus genotype identity scans on ancient DNA to detect natural selection in Holocene Europe, identifying new selection signals not found by single SNP approaches.

This study compares three methods to estimate time-since-deposition from cell morphology and autofluorescence data in forensic samples, finding that gradient boosting machines and GLMM-LASSO provide the most accurate predictions.

The paper addresses statistical concerns about detecting natural selection during the Black Death using ancient genomic data, reaffirming findings related to immune loci and the ERAP2 variant.

The paper develops a minimally-invasive method for ancient DNA sampling from prehistoric bone and antler tools, successfully identifying taxa for 33% of objects and demonstrating antler as a reliable aDNA source.

The paper finds that CODIS STR markers are located in regions with higher densities of trait-associated variants compared to other STRs.

This paper introduces a new local ancestry inference method that addresses complex population histories by using machine learning on tree sequences and path ancestry, showing improved performance over existing tools.

This study analyzes ancient genomes from Cambridgeshire to assess the Black Death's impact on local genetic diversity and social structure, finding no major genetic changes but disparities in stature linked to social status.