Infectious diseases are among the strongest selective pressures driving human evolution 1 , 2 . This includes the single greatest mortality event in recorded history, the first outbreak of the second pandemic of plague, commonly called the Black Death, which was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis 3 . This pandemic devastated Afro-Eurasia, killing up to 30–50% of the population 4 . To identify loci that may have been under selection during the Black Death, we characterized genetic variation around immune-related genes from 206 ancient DNA extracts, stemming from two different European populations before, during and after the Black Death. Immune loci are strongly enriched for highly differentiated sites relative to a set of non-immune loci, suggesting positive selection. We identify 245 variants that are highly differentiated within the London dataset, four of which were replicated in an independent cohort from Denmark, and represent the strongest candidates for positive selection. The selected allele for one of these variants, rs2549794, is associated with the production of a full-length (versus truncated) ERAP2 transcript, variation in cytokine response to Y. pestis and increased ability to control intracellular Y. pestis in macrophages. Finally, we show that protective variants overlap with alleles that are today associated with increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, providing empirical evidence for the role played by past pandemics in shaping present-day susceptibility to disease.

Two nonsynonymous OCA2 polymorphisms (rs1800414 and rs74653330) are independently associated with normal skin pigmentation variation in East Asian populations and have very different frequency distributions in East Asia.

Light field cameras have been extensively used in a variety of applications, thanks to their snapshot three-dimensional imaging capability. However, little is known regarding their pros and cons for a given application. Herein we report a fundamental comparison between two types of light field cameras-focused and unfocused. Our results indicate that the unfocused light field camera outperforms its focused counterpart in depth range and number of resolvable depth steps, while the focused light field camera has an edge in lateral resolution and reconstruction accuracy.

Highlights d Reconstructed 18 mitochondrial genomes solely from <1 g samples of permafrost silts d Found co-occurrence of distinct mitochondrial clades of mammoth and steppe bison d Reassembled megafaunal (horse, mammoth, and bison) and avian (ptarmigan) mitogenomes d Identified a wide breadth of animals that lived 30,000 years ago in central Yukon

Objectives: In the 14th century AD, medieval Europe was severely affected by the Great European Famine as well as repeated bouts of disease, including the Black Death, causing major demographic shifts. This high volatility led to increased mobility and migration due to new labor and economic opportunities, as evidenced by documentary and stable isotope data. This study uses ancient DNA (aDNA) isolated from skeletal remains to examine whether evidence for largescale population movement can be gleaned from the complete mitochondrial genomes of 264 medieval individuals from England (London) and Denmark.Materials and Methods: Using a novel library-conserving approach to targeted capture, we recovered 264 full mitochondrial genomes from the petrous portion of the temporal bones and teeth and compared genetic diversity across the medieval period within and between English (London) and Danish populations and with contemporary populations through population pairwise Φ ST analysis.Results: We find no evidence of significant differences in genetic diversity spatially or temporally in our dataset, yet there is a high degree of haplotype diversity in our medieval samples with little exact sequence sharing.Discussion: The mitochondrial genomes of both medieval Londoners and medieval Danes suggest high mitochondrial diversity before, during and after the Black Death. While our mitochondrial genomic data lack geographically correlated signals, these data could be the result of high, continual female migration before and after the Black Death or may simply indicate a large