Fido of Arabia.

• Position: Middle East - Brief article

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It's long been thought that dogs originated in East Asia. But it turns out, the Middle East may be a better bet. Borrowing methods used to study the genetics of human disease, researchers at UCLA analyzed genomes of wolves and dogs (which are descendants of wolves) from around the world to look for similarities in their DNA. The dog and wolf genomes from the Middle East were the most similar, which suggests that the Middle East is where dogs were first domesticated from wolves. Archaeological evidence also points to the Middle East--where some...