LOS ANGELES A quarter of the dogs taken in by one California animal shelter look like Chihuahuas. So how do you make a pet stand out when it's similar to so many other dogs at the shelter? Check the DNA. The Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA in Burlingame, a 30-minute drive south of San Francisco, began free DNA tests under the slogan "Who's Your Daddy?" Scott Delucchi, the shelter's senior vice president, came up with the idea to speed up adoptions of Chihuahua-centric dogs. Because pets become part of the family, the $50 tests allow owners to find out the background of their pooches and certain traits they could exhibit. The tests also allow the shelter to get creative by coming up with clever breed names that can boost adoption odds. For example, the Chihuahua-Australian shepherd-Jack Russell terrier-collie became a "Kiwi collier"; a Yorkshire terrier and beagle mix became a "Yorkle"; and a golden retriever-miniature pinscher-Chihuahua was proclaimed a "golden Chinscher." In February, the shelter tested 12 lookalike dogs. One of the results was inconclusive, but 11 showed mutt combinations that the facility had never seen before. The tested dogs were all placed within two weeks twice as fast as … Continue reading →

Genetic samples collected from across the United Kingdom are shedding light on the ancient past, including Viking invasions and a mystery about the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, researchers report. The DNA also suggests that, genetically speaking, people in Wales are the closest matches to early settlers of Britain after the last ice age, people who began showing up some 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. That's because the Welsh genetic material has been the least affected by later migrations, said Peter Donnelly of Oxford University, a key author of the research. The work is presented in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The researchers studied DNA samples from 2,039 white residents of Britain and Northern Ireland, chosen for their family roots in rural areas. The DNA they inherited from their grandparents reflects the genetic landscape of those areas in the late 1880s, researchers said. To identify signs of ancient immigrations, the researchers consulted DNA samples taken from continental Europeans. Analysis showed that Danish Vikings, who occupied and controlled a large part of England after invading in the year 865, have left no clear genetic heritage today. That suggests they didn't settle in large numbers, Donnelly said in an email. … Continue reading →