Puzzle mini-mummy solved: Ata is not alien

Puzzle mini-mummy solved: Ata is not alien

World March 22, 2018 17:39

san francisco - The origin of the enigmatic mini-mummy from Chile, which was seen by many as an alien creature, is well known. The tiny, only 15 centimeter long mummified skeleton with the strangely stretched skull and the big eye sockets is human, feminine to be precise. That is certain after five years of intensive DNA research and comparison with the genome of chimpanzee and rhesus monkey.

The discovery in a deserted, dry and hot place in the Chilean Atacama desert bore up world wide in 2003. There was even a documentary devoted to the alientje, that Ata was baptized to the site. The film is now finally science fiction. In reality, the little girl, who was probably born much too early forty years ago, had a series of genetic abnormalities that led to, among other things, malformation of the skull.

Californian scientists have described this in the journal Genome Research. Many of the proven gene defects were known to play a role in dwarfism, spinal curvature (scoliosis) and muscle and bone deformation. Other observed mutations were associated with the development of certain syndromes but not yet with this type of developmental disorders.

In the first investigation it was immediately noticeable that Ata had ten instead of twelve pairs of ribs and that some skeletal parts of a six- or seven-year-old child seemed to be. Could it be that she has lived so long despite all the deformities? No, the specialists say thanks to the hereditary material extracted from a rib. Ata was a fetus and suffered from a rare disease that causes bones to age quickly.

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