Global DNA Project to Study Human Ancestry

Steve writes "The National Geographic Society and IBM are teaming up to map the history of human migration using DNA. The Genographic Project aims to collect 100,000 genetic samples which will be used trace the movements of humans out of Africa and around the globe. While the most useful samples will come from indiginous populations, members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs."

Comments

What would be interesting...

[jd]

Is to compare the results with Oxford Ancestors, who perform a very similar service and have done for some years now. OA claim to be able to pinpoint a region from which you are ultimately descended on the female line, and to make a good guess of the same on the male line.

If OA's regions flat-out contradict NG's, then one or both sets of data must be wrong. A fatal flaw exists in an assumption that has been made. Which would be valuable to know, from a scientific standpoint, even if it would hurt sales.

If the two agree, it isn't proof that they are accurate, but provided the work was independently carried out, it raises the chances that they really are onto something.

Interesting stuff

[ites]

Forget all the "big brother" comments.

There have been some studies of human DNA and these have often produced very interesting results, showing accurately how people migrated across the globe.

The problem up to now is that these have been relatively small studies confined to specific issues - such as the colonisation of the Pacific islands, which happened from Indonesia, not South America (sorry, Thor).

A large-scale analysis of human DNA that includes Africa - the richest mix of DNA by far - will be very, very interesting.

For example, there are theories that modern Africans are largely descended from relatively recent immigrants from the Indian Ocean basin who recolonised from the East coast and mixed with aboriginal Africans - such as the Khoi and San - eventually pushing these into the margins.

Good stuff.

Incremental Knowledge

[4of12]

The African exodus I think is pretty well understood. Although, there seems to have been multiple exodi (?) of hominid species that did not survive in the long term (such as the Neanderthal in Europe).

From what I understand, the story gets harder to piece together in the last part of the European migrations from Central Asia.

A couple of interesting TV shows on this were The Real Eve (which does the mitochondrial trace through maternal ancestral lines), and Journey of Man, which relates to the more difficult task of tracing mutations in the Y chromosome handed done through paternal lines.

One of the earlier pioneers in the field, Brian Sykes of Oxford, started up a side business where you can send swabs to obtain information about maternal and paternal markers in your genetic makeup (IIRC, about US$225).

A few years ago I got the analysis done and sent the results back to Ma 'n Pa for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts.

Our Complex History

[J05H]

This is an interesting project, it will help to fill in the holes in the knowledge of our origins. Most cultures have legends of the journeys that led to settling a new home, with this research we will see much more clearly who went where,

Here is the map I want to see more fully realized:

http://www.mitomap.org/WorldMigrations.pdf

There are interesting legends and recent research that Genographic project might help: were there Austronesian ("aborigine") migrations across the Pacific 40,000 years ago? Are modern Tibetans and Athapaskan speakers (Navaho) related through the so-called Amur River Culture? When and how often have the "X" haplogroups travelled to America, and were these only Neolithic migrations or did they occur throughout the Bronze and Iron ages? Finally, how much back-migration occured from the Americas to the Old World continents? I'm not the one to research it, but a correlation between Am-Indian oral lore and this geno-map could make for an interesting thesis.

My guess is that the project will show far more migration than previously expected - humans are nothing if not mobile.

josh

DNA is the ANTI CHRIST

[daperdan]

Isn't it amazing that we can convict a suspect of murder with a 99.99% certainty using DNA evidence but the religious reject it if it goes against their beliefs.

The best case of DNA invalidating a religion is Mormonism. The founder of Mormonism claimed to have translated a book that was written by a people that migrated from the Middle East to the American continent. He claimed that these immigrants were the "priciple ancestors" of the modern day American Indian.

Well it turns out that DNA proves what science has been saying for years. The American Indian is of Asiatic decent. Any other examples of DNA destroying a religion?

Re:Is this really science???

[brontus3927]

Acording to a program on the Discovery Channel, about 60,000 years ago, the population of homo sapiens sapiens was reduced to ~2000. The current hypothesis is that the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupted and caused world-wide havoc on the ecosystem causing mass die-offs in populations. It would be noted that around that time, the North American Interior Seaway is believed to have broken through (possibly because of the eruption) the land seperating it from the Atlantic Ocean. This breka would have caused world sea level to rise about 10 meters. In flat lying areas such as the middle east (considered the birthlace of civilization) this would have caused floods hundreds of miles inland. Correlates roughly to the story of Noah (world gets flooded and only a handful of people left to repopulate the Earth)