http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49T83Z20081030

I'll summarize the article.  The ~5000 year old ice mummy dug out of the Alps (remember him?) apparently has no modern descendants because his mitochondrial DNA is not a recognized sequence, suggesting that his mitochondrial line of descent is extinct.

This is a very cool factoid, because it's actually kind of odd that a mitochondrial line of descent would go extinct (outside the possibility of a mass human die-off--nothing suggests that one happened in Europe c. 5000 BCE), given the proclivity of human males to impregnate the captured females of defeated rivals.  But does anyone see a problem here?

Who's proofing their science writing?  The ice mummy was a man.  He couldn't have passed on his mitochondrial DNA in any case.  He did (one assumes) have a Y chromosome, however, but they report no analysis on that subject. Only once you get DNA from a nuclear source can you make that claim for a man.  If Reuters can't get shit this simple straight, I know a grad student with expensive appetites who has plenty of free time waiting for cultures to grow up.