Relevant for various areas of human genetics, Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) are commonly used for testing close paternal relationships among individuals and populations, and for male lineage identification. However, even the widely used 17-loci Yfiler set cannot resolve individuals and populations completely. Here, 52 centers generated quality-controlled data of 13 rapidly mutating (RM) Y-STRs in 14,644 related and unrelated males from 111 worldwide populations. Strikingly, >99% of the 12,272 unrelated males were completely individualized. Haplotype diversity was extremely high (global: 0.9999985, regional: 0.99836–0.9999988). Haplotype sharing between populations was almost absent except for six (0.05%) of the 12,156 haplotypes. Haplotype sharing within populations was generally rare (0.8% nonunique haplotypes), significantly lower in urban (0.9%) than rural (2.1%) and highest in endogamous groups (14.3%). Analysis of molecular variance revealed 99.98% of variation within populations, 0.018% among populations within groups, and 0.002% among groups. Of the 2,372 newly and 156 previously typed male relative pairs, 29% were differentiated including 27% of the 2,378 father–son pairs. Relative to Yfiler, haplotype diversity was increased in 86% of the populations tested and overall male relative differentiation was raised by 23.5%. Our study demonstrates the value of RM Y-STRs in identifying and separating unrelated and related males and provides a reference database.

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An improvement in quality of medical external post-mortem examinations among others can be achieved by more intensive training of medical students. Modern learning and teaching methods such as e-learning modules and SkillsLab stations should be used for this. The introduction of corresponding methods of assessment such as the OSCE procedure is necessary to test the success of learning. In Halle (Germany), two OSCE stations on the subject of external post-mortem examinations were introduced in 2016. The 'practical external post-mortem examination' station test skills and abilities students have learned during practical external post-mortem examination in small group classes on a simulation doll. At the 'death certificate' station, an original death certificate must be filled in, testing the knowledge, skills and abilities learned in the SkillsLab station and during e-learning. A total of 148 students took part in the test. At both stations, at least two thirds of the students (69.5 and 81.7%) were able to show good or very good test results. In addition to the strengths, a detailed evaluation of the test results showed that there were still deficits in terms of the corresponding courses (e.g. inspection of the neck region in the small group classes), which will have to be remedied in the future. When analysing the test concept and the test implementation, objectivity was nearly perfect. There was a satisfactory internal consistency and stability over 8 months. Ultimately, in addition to several strengths (such as good understanding and transparency of the checklists) the evaluation of the examiners also showed further potential areas for improvement (e.g. harmonisation of the degree of difficulty for the individual rotations) when designing the OSCE stations. Overall, it was possible to determine that the OSCE testing format is a suitable tool to test external post-mortem examination skills and that conclusions about improvements in teaching can also be drawn from this.

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