World
Chickens were domesticated in China first
New York: Contradicting scientists who claimed that wild hens were first domesticated in the Indus Valley in what is now western India and Pakistan, a team of international scientists has credited the Chinese for introducing the practice.
The researchers obtained DNA sequences from 10,000 years old chicken fossils originating from northern China, and found these sequences were several thousand years older than any other ancient chicken DNA sequence reported previously.
Our results suggest that the oldest archaeological chicken bones recovered so far are from the ancestors of domestic hens, the study authors said.
Prior to this study, the oldest chicken DNA sequences came from birds that lived around 4,000 years ago, the Smithsonian magazine reported.
“Our analyses also suggest that northern China represents one region where the earliest chicken domestication took place, possibly dating as early as 10,000 years BP (Before Present),” said Xingbo Zhao, co-author of the new study from the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
The researchers examined 39 bird bones recovered from three archaeological sites along the Yellow river in northern China and one site in eastern China.
The study found that the bones, including the oldest from the Nanzhuangtou site, are derived from the genus Gallus, the same as modern-day domesticated chickens.
“Our results suggest that these early domesticated chickens contributed to the gene pool of modern chicken populations,” the authors said.
The findings appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.
Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai
Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.
Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.
Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.
WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.
Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.
Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy
Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.
The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.
Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.
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