How the fuck did they prove this though? No way in hell there is a mummy with intact gut flora from that period.
bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@WhiteTemplar
i think it's a bullshit study against milk. has been posted a while ago, i'll just add what i did back then: europeans back then will have known about spontaneous fermentation.
@shibao
Sure, but I am questioning the "science" itself. How the heck can you prove this from millennia old specimens?
@WhiteTemplar
seems that producing lactase as adult is a genetic mutation you can look for. also roots of teeth are supposedly good to protect dna a long time. maybe at least good enough to detect certain sequences.
the premise is bullshit though. just because there are vessels which have contained something something milk, doesn't mean that the people then drank it raw. that a mutation enabling you to consume an _additional_ food source is an advantage should be clear. no bowel problems required.
people always have these ideas like "they didn't make the connection of drinking milk and diarrhea!" which is obvious bullshit. if they had raging shits from drinking raw milk they wouldn't have done it. just like they might have found rather easily that sour milk is easier on the stomach.
the abstract of the study reads like the question was constructed around the findings, imho.
@WhiteTemplar
they are probably talking about a single gene, and you have many cells even in a single tooth. so ~600 years half life might be fine for this use case. i really don't know much about DNA analysis, so just vague guesses here :)
joke: bet they did 40 cycles of gold-standard-pcr test.
@shibao
I bet they started with the conclusion they wanted and tried to find data that fit it...or just made up data.
@WhiteTemplar
reading the abstract certainly has that feeling :)
@shibao
DNA's half-life, even under perfect conditions isn't great. The highest I've seen was near 600 years per half-life. So when you consider how many millennia they are talking about, I don't see how they can be sure about anything.