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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."
Otherwise known as the beginning of Global Big Brother.
Hmmm. No thanks.
I'de like the job of receiving DNA samples in the mail. That sounds healthy.
...till we make the Kwisatz Haderach?
I can see it now, spit in an envelope and sending it to DNA department.
PS. No horking big lugies.
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
And people wonder why Christians such as myself as looking towards the future with skepticism. Nothing good will come of this, all IBM is doing is spitting in God's face, I fully expect Him to punish IBM's executives for this.
Does it worry anyone that IBM, the company doing this, was one of the biggest supporters of Germany in World War II?
"We've gotten the results of the study back, and it turns out that IBM employees are the master race and the rest of your are being sent to the gas chambers. National Geographic will be taking pictures."
I assume that IBM will have a droll-prof mail box....
This is really just an attempt by IBM to prepare a defense against SCO that shows that Wookiees do not, in fact, come from Endor.
if they accecpt other swabbing techniques? The "other" dna sources would probably get a huge male bias to the data though.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs.
You want me to voluntarily contribute my DNA so you can keep it on file somewhere? Not a chance! I watch CSI, you know!
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
when they finish all their research, and everything is all said and done, I shall be deeply disappointed if they don't at least consider Atlantis as a possible origin of man.
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. for only $100.00 plus ship/handling"
--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com
Adam and Eve will spew out lots of kids. The ancestors die out in the flood years later as Noah and his family have to restart the human race and repopulate the planet with the pair of every 10 Million species he had on the Ark.
Yay!
This sounds like a really good idea. People who volunteer even get an anonymous password to the website to see how their ancestors migrated to their current location. Too bad they will be testing only indigenous peoples. European-based mutts such as myself don't get to participate.
Free MacMini
These cheek swabs are not oral! You have been warned.
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.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
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.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The outcome will show that we all have one parents, Adam and Eve, as the bible says.
I can see now that all the puzzle pieces fit: their involment with the Nazis, Building large supercomputers, Backing the communist "open-source" movement, and now a DNA database.
Next we'll discover that IBM has discovered Thule and wants to open "new" corporate offices there.
I'd like too see their reaction if someone sent them the DNA of a chimpanzee... Given the similarity between the two DNAs, it might take them them a while to figure that one out...
I would do this, but their is a low limit to how much I would pay for it. It seems like the use is going to be pure population biology and I happen to like population biology.
"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."
So, they want people who immigrated a long time ago, and are not really interested in newer immigration? Because ancestrial migration doesn't count unless your the first to get there? This makes absolutly no sense what so ever.
Firstly, the contention that human's originated from Africa is highly debatable.
Secondly, according to their map, the first man was Adam!? This sounds more like Sunday School rather than science.
Lastly, if they are trying to trace migrations, and they already have their map made up will they be fitting their data to their preconceived notions?
...when it turned out your paternal line came from the mailman? ;)
Let's cast asside the paranoia for a moment and glance at the liklihood that they will be able to build some amount of evidence to prove what they are setting out to prove. The world has become much smaller in the last couple of hundred years. People are less often living in their ancestoral regions and it's becoming more and more obfustated by the second.
And I suppose we should pretty much exclude all but "native americans" from any studies related to the new world. (The Americas) I think this study will just turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money. Who is paying for this?
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
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
... from platform to platform.
But I can't see why the National Geographic cares.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Just a thought: Linking this DNA study to studies in historical linguistics could give interesting results. There must be some correlation between people's DNA and the language they use.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Apparently you have never heard of the book "IBM and the Holocaust" (http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/)
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
It is generally agreed that the first humans arrived in the americas around 25-30,000 years ago but their migration from that point on is a mystery.
One belief is that they migrated south through a northern passage as the polar ice-caps melted. Another is that they migrated down the west coast from the north pole to south America befoer the ice-caps melted. There is a third (more controversial) theory that they migrated by boat from africa and then moved north up the continent.
It will be interesting to see what conclusions are drawn.
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
will come from indigenous populations
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs.
If crumpled up tissues count as these cheeked swabs then I can meet their 100,000 quota by tonight.
Don't worry, I wont have to change any of my usual plans.
Maybe they could use this study to help cure diseases or maybe better yet help the masses of over a billion people in poverty.
Some research on this was done before.
There was also this fellow, British I think, who did a documentary about early human migration using genetics, he was on TV (PBS?) a few years back. Nice work. He showed that there were two waves out of Africa. One hugged the coastline reaching India then all the way to Australia, and another going to central Asia, then staying there for a while, and then a branch going west to Europe, and another going east to Siberia, Beringia, and eventually to the Americans. Can't remember his name. Rats!
Some other resources:
Scientists trace human migration using DNA.
Wikipedia article on Human migration.
Stephen Oppenheimer did a genetic map.
Kurgan Genetics.
Neanderthaals and mtDNA
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
At the end of the day, unless you live in central Africa, and possibly not then, no one is truly indegenous. We're all immigrants at some point or another.
OK, I know I'm nitpicking. As far as the spread of mankind etc. then the first arrivals are the indigenous population. Here in the west of Europe peoples have been coming ad going for several thousend years. Exactly who's indigenous is very complex.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Their holy book orders them to convert people! That's goddamn offensive to me...some goon who thinks there is an invisible man in the sky is going to tell ME that I'm WRONG?
Any religion that claims to be the 'only religion' is obviously false. You'd have to be a half-wit to miss that logical fallacy.
Blar.
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?
So, how many out there think this is a government funded plot to genetically tag everyone on the planet, starting with a very innocent looking 100k?
Prepare to superglue foil inside you entire mouth. You know, just in case of some forced swab penetration.
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This dangerous research is bad. We all came from Eve and Adam 5000 years ago. Why do we need to do this?
On a more serious note (in case you did not guess the above was a joke), I always thought that historical
linguistics could provide the same answers.
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Taco Stand is Dying, Says Athens Banner Herald
Achim advocates have long insisted that open-source development results in better and more secure tacos. Now they have statistics to back up their claims.
According to a four-year analysis of the 5.7 million pounds of Achims fries conducted by five UGA computer science researchers, the Achims kernel programming code is better and more secure than the programming code of Taco Stand.
The report, set to be released on Tuesday, states that the 2.6 Achims production kernel, shipped with software from Red Hat, Novell and other major Achims vendors, contains 985 bugs in 5.7 million lines of code, well below the average for Taco Stand software. Taco Stand, by comparison, contains about 40 million lines of code, with new bugs found on a frequent basis.
Taco Stand software typically has 20 to 30 bugs for every 1,000 lines of code, according to Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab Sustainable Computing Consortium. This would be equivalent to 114,000 to 171,000 bugs in 5.7 million lines of code.
The study identified 0.17 bugs per 1,000 lines of code in the Achims kernel. Of the 985 bugs identified, 627 were in critical parts of the kernel.
"Our findings show that Achims contains an extremely low defect rate and is evidence of the strong security of Achims," said Hallem. "Many security holes in software are the result of software bugs that can be eliminated with good programming processes. Unfortunately, we don't find a lot of good practices in Taco Stand. Mostly we just find in-fighting and security holes. I can conclusively say that Taco Stand is dying."
The Achims fries analysis project started in 2000 at the Stanford University Computer Science Research Center as part of a large research initiative to improve core software engineering processes in the software industry.
The initiative now continues at UGA, said it intends to start providing Achims bug analysis reports on a regular basis and will make a summary of the results freely available to the Achims development community.
"This is a benefit to the Achims development community, and we appreciate UGA's efforts to help us improve the security and stability of Achims," said Andrew Morton, lead Achims kernel maintainer. Morton said developers have already addressed the top-priority bugs uncovered in the study.
We all came from Africa, it's just a matter of when .....
And then there was the subpoena that forced the project to hand over all records because of a "thread to national security" all of a sudden we are back to 1939 because my 448th cousin has decided to go and blow himself up in a shopping centre.
Sounds really good!.. cant wait to join.. just like i cant wait to join some mercenary force in africa run by a bunch of stupid british people!.
Look it up when not sure.
You all bitch and moan about corporations collecting your private information. Now why the fuck would you be voluntarily sending them your DNA? Putzes.
From Publishers Weekly:
In this surprisingly accessible book, British geneticist Wells sets out to answer long-standing anthropological questions of where humans came from, how we migrated and when we arrived in such places as Europe and North America. To trace the migration of human beings from our earliest homes in Africa to the farthest reaches of the globe, Wells calls on recent DNA research for support. Clues in the blood of present groups such as eastern Russia's Chukchi, as well as the biological remnants of long-extinct human clans, allow Wells to follow the Y chromosome as a relatively unaltered marker of human heritage. Eventually, working backward through time, he finds that the earliest common "ingredient" in males' genetic soup was found in a man Wells calls the "Eurasian Adam," who lived in Africa between 31,000 and 79,000 years ago. Each subsequent population, isolated from its fellows, gained new genetic markers, creating a map in time and space. Wells writes that the first modern humans "left Africa only 2,000 generations ago" and quickly fanned out across Asia, into Europe, and across the then-extant land bridge into the Americas. Using the same markers, he debunks the notion that Neanderthals were our ancestors, finds odd links between faraway peoples, and-most startlingly-discovers that all Native Americans can be traced to a group of perhaps a dozen people. By explaining his terminology and methods throughout the book, instead of in a chunk, Wells makes following the branches of the human tree seem easy. 44 color photos, 54 halftones and 3 maps.
San Francisco Photographers
There are TWO models detailing the origins of our species. One model is the Out-of-Africa model. This effectively states that Homo sapiens left africa and COMPLETELY replaced Home Erectus (found in China) and Homo sapiens neandertalensis in Europe with little to no inter-breeding. This is the current "popular" theory.
i regional-model.html
o ff
However, there is another model called the multi-regional model that states Homo sapiens evolved sperately on each of the different continents. How could this happen you say? Because enough interbreeding went on to maintain species integrity. Proponents of the Out-of-Africa model tend to ignore fossil evidence from Dali China that shows a skull exhibiting charateristics closer to H. sapiens than H. erectus - pre-dating the earliest evidence from Africa. Or other evidence such as a blending of charateristics in the middle east (mix of Neanderthal/H. Sapiens): EXACTLY where you would expect to find that sort of thing.
Check out the following link: http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/02/more-on-mult
Or google: Milford Wolpoff http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Milford+Wolp
The Out-of-Africanists are force fitting a theory on the existing data. Something they are able to get away with because the current "most popular" scientists (D. Johanson, Leekey) push it. Its unfortunate that politics has worked its way into science.
Remember, you only find what you are looking for.
from mutation and retrovirus based alterations
Dude, you play to much resident evil. In the real world there is no such thing as "retro virus based mutation".
People say that migration began with Adam and Eve from Eden. However, all but 8 humans were killed in the worldwide flood which destroyed all evidence of antediluvian migration. Our most recent common ancestor is Noah. The flood occured in approximately 2350 BC. So where did Noah's family migrate from?
The mountains of Ararat. Oh, Turkey, you say? No, the term Ararat was given to a peak in Turkey in more modern times. The mountains of Ararat are actually the modern day Zagaros Mountains of NW Iran. The tallest peak of the Zagaros is known as Mt. Sabalon which in antiquity was called "Noah's Mountain". There's a very interesting book called "In Search of the Lost Mountains of Noah" by Robert Cornuke and David Halbrook which provides much evidence of the Zagaros Mountains being the true mountains of Ararat. I highly recommend picking up a copy.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Doesn't this bother anyone else?
Usually, when you set out to do research you have alternative hypotheses that you test the same way as the hypothesis you hold dear to your heart -- this is the scientist's way of tricking himself into not lying to himself.
It's called strong inference. They should use it before the lose it.
Seastead this.
Please don't start a line at your local IMAX. I strongly suspect any film documentary of this WON'T be coming to an IMAX near you.
The Autarch totally owns the KH.
Since when could the KH reboot the sun?
(shoots KH with HK)
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Dinosaurs with a flaming sword? Oh man, how did I miss it...those Saturday morning shows were documentaries...
They claims something that cannot be proven. That's enough for me.
Blar.
He said it was a joke! You are dumber than a rock.
I can't wait to see idiot racists get pissed when they find out great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma was asian, african or even GASP semite. As much as people don't want to know... the truth needs to be told, we're all mutts. There is no "master race".
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Furthermore, the nomenclature is mischeivious: Adam and Eve never met. They probably didn't even live within 5 thousand years of eachother. All these studies show are that all existing versions of these genes trace back via a given series of mutations to a specific individual, which, usuing geographic data and some assumptions about migratory behavior and mutation rates, you can imply to have existed in a certain place and time. You can do this with any loci, and at some point in the past it fixes. Each gene goes back to a different individual in a different place. HLA genes go back to the earliest vertibrates.
Don't freak out when you learn the truth about the garden.
This has already been done/started years ago. http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=human+genome+d iversity+project
How dare these clown polute the slashdot literature!
take a look at this photo of the eastern australian aborignes (now wiped out). They were descendants of the Murrayian aborignes. Some say they were part homo erectus. You can still see some aspects of the murrayians in some aborgines today. They may have mixed with erectus on the way down to Australia.
BTW, most aborigines has visual cortexes that are 25% larger than other humans.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
So, will IBM own my DNA, If I send mine in?
While Choicepoint is not mentioned in TFA, If you don't think they and their like-minded competitors are salivating on getting their hands on everyone's DNA, then you have not been paying attention.
IBM does the collection, Choicepoint could do the harvesting, it all sounds just wonderful, doesn't it?
I wonder what the going rate for Briteny Spear's DNA is?
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
...are not salivating...
Must remember... PREVIEW!
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
http://www.cytoscape.org/
"Cytoscape is an open source bioinformatics software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks and integrating these interactions with gene expression profiles and other state data."
http://www.geneontology.org/
"The goal of the Gene Ontology project is to produce a controlled vocabulary that can be applied to all organisms even as knowledge of gene and protein roles in cells is accumulating and changing. GO provides three structured networks of defined terms to describe gene product attributes. GO is one of the controlled vocabularies of the Open Biomedical Ontologies."
One concern is that the folks may pervert the finding of this data to support one of two equally corrupt conclusions. One that finding a single lineage of all people (monogenism) endorses the Judeo-Christian beliefs in Adam & Eve. Or two that multiple sources of origin (polyenism) can justify racism - in that some lineages are "less" evolved than others. The dangers of these ideas are well documented by Louis Menand in his wonderful book "The Metaphysical Club"
One of the stronger arguements against african origin is called the multiregional model which purports that humans evolved through variety of location.
So, as the evidence mounts in favour of a recent African origin, one might ask why we continue to speculate about our evolutionary history. Why are we still digging if the roots have been unearthed? The answer is that in spite of the facts, there is still no final answer. None of the deductions made thus far are watertight, and the methods and approaches employed are continually being reassessed. For instance, over recent years the assumption that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited and thereby free from recombination has been disputed. If sperm mitochondria are found to recombine with mitochondria present in the ovum, the credibility of the mitochondrial evidence may be called into question. Similarly, flaws in the molecular clock technique have been highlighted.
The story is further complicated by the possibility that neither of the principal models (OAR and Multiregional) is correct. The true explanation may be an amalgamation of the two, which is reflected in the alternate "Hybridisation" and "Assimilation" models. These theories tone down the role of replacement in human evolution by incorporating gene flow and hybridisation yet still allow that Africa has a prime position in human genetic history. The exact importance of Africa, and indeed the full narrative, remains to be told. But with further advances in molecular techniques, and the use of alternate gene systems, we may finally be getting closer to solving the mystery of where we came from...
Paraminder Dhillon
There are other arguements against the african origin, just as there are mounting arguments against the land bridge theory. Much of the arguements is that we are finding the oldest humans in Africa because that is where we are looking. It's easy to find things in Africa, as opposed to say the frozen North, which may have older fossil evidence from when those latitudes were much warmer but are now buried beneath snow and ice. Regardless, these theories being held as "law" are making it quite difficult to do real science.
Proponents of the Land Bridge Migration have made it very difficult to accept dating clovis man, mummies in South America and sites in South Carolina older because they so conflict with their precious theory. In the same manner, evidence that conflicts with the African Origin theory is ruled as wrong rather than as interesting. To me, this doesn't seem like science but rather religion: if data conflicts with a theory, it should call the theory into question rather than the data, particularily when there are many data points that do not support a theory that is based on very little data.
Look at where these tennents are coming from -- victorian notions. We see our Christian views as central to everything and we try to fit our observations to fit these views. Rather than searching for "Adam & Eve", science should be searching for early humans and try to figure out what it might mean. We have very little data on humans past 100,000 years. It could very likely turn out that humans migrated to Africa for the weather when other regions became too cold. Older human remains than those found in South Africa where "Adam" is placed on the articles map have been found far to the North in Ethiopia.
--
don't anthropomorphize ancient people, they don't like it
It seems that if a religion did not claim to be the 'only religion', then why would any of its members cling to it at all? After all, if Christianity was just 'one of many' ways to God, why would people have any incentive to remain Christian?
Gods: Plural.
When the Romans encountered new religions in their travel, they didn't go "oh noes, other gods! The central tenets of our religion must be false!", they simply went "hey, new gods, what did you say there name was? And what does he do? Thunder, lightning? Oh, we call him Zeus..."
Much the same way that when early Christians encountered other religious practises, they assimilated them... until they got strong enough to crush them instead, that is.
I'm sure there's a few Hindus out there who figure that Jesus was simply another avatar of Vishnu.
You can't take the sky from me...
50 years ago no one ever dreamed of identity theft and we gave out our social security numbers like candy on Holloween. Fast forward to 2005, ID theft has reached crisis proportions -- and the govt is either unwilling (or unable) to do anything about it. I would not be so quick to hand out my Bio ID (DNA).
I used to handle amniotic fluid for a major genetic testing facility. I would receive recursively packaged vials of widely color-varied amniotic fluid, and pack them into styrofoam test-tube holders. This was before anyone trusted me to touch their computers.
Later on the data-entry part, I had changed the screen resolution from 640x480 to 800x600 -- so I could see the whole entry form without scrolling. When someone noticed this, they send out 3 technicians: two to figure out how to change the res back, and one to scold my manager for letting me do this. Afterwards, my manager told me that it makes sense to increase productivity, but not when policies are interfered with.
Handling biological samples might be a ton of fun, but it's the other associated tasks that may be less than fun.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
My mom said there's a lot of black people in Africa.
eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
I remember reading comments by someone on the original "eve" study that implied that the "Out of Africa" theory of human origin was one possible interpretation of the data. There were other interpretations that were as likely, but not consistent with the current dogma.
Wonder if this study will clear up the OOA?
...whosyourdaddy
The described project looks at things from an anthropological timescale. You can also look for ancestors on a genealogical timescale using DNA (depending on the mutation rate of the DNA). The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation are building a huge database to enable genealogists to locate ancestors based on their DNA.
Another project accomplishing similar objectives: the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.
I say the first humans came out of Pangia! :P
The truth about DNA and Humanity's origins can be found here.
g _s ession__dna.html
;o)
http://www.keysofenoch.com/html/academy_learnin
People need to wake up and realize that we are about to have some major changes on this planet, and that the future is much brighter than the antiquated techologies we toil with daily.
Steve Klingsporn
Extraterrestrial "Invader"
I say! Lets all take samples from our pets at home and send the data,,,that'll screw them up big time! I can picture it! Science doctor found that we have gecko dna and dies horribly after severing his arms just to see if it could grow back!
members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA
Here's the address:
Sign Me Up!
Box TIA^h^h^hDNA
Dept. of Homeland Security
Somewhere
Washington, D.C. 20666
It takes an idiot to do cool things - that's why it's cool!
Not to mention the first forced sterilization, before the Nazi party even came to power. See Buck v. Bell.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Wilt had a day job, and his... adventures... took place after the advent of birth control. I doubt he'll end up with the same sort of advantage. I suppose a particularly prolific raping soldier might be singularly responsible for an influx of a particular trait into a neighboring region. Perhaps more likely?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Well, honestly, i'm very sick of this subject. While i am not a creationist, and do not belive in the whole "god created everything" , But honestly, I hate the theory of "we came from Africa" Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the fact that we spent 5 months on it in History class. I think instead of focusing on Africa, we should be compairing it with other cultures, and not just the major ones. not just Asian, white black. But with the minorities also. But thats me, and who cares.
I am French, and terribably sorry for my spelling.
Genographic project site, rather than BBC reporting of it. Like I put in my submission of this story, earlier than this one. Winge moan. And this one should have an IBM tag.
How to Participate
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
McQuitty's Law States: No matter how fast the computer, it's always too slow.
While DNA may provide a much more accessible accurate trace than the fossil record of the details of the HSS diaspora, the method used to extrapolate dates from the genetic data is much less precise than geological techinques.
So it should be a fairly safe assumption that the bottleneck around the time of y-Adam was due to Toba and that date should be -74K rather than -60K.
This is pretty much consistent with the correction needed to match their -40K "out of Africa" date with recent best estimates of earlier than -50K for Australian megafaunal extinction, though those dates have more margin for error than the Toba date.
Given the accumulation evidence that much of the diaspora was likely coastal with short sea legs and the suggestion that most of the modern population of Africa was reseeded by returnees from the Indian Ocean basin, Tim Flannery's hypothesis in The Future Eaters that the opportunity the first arrivals in Australia found to overexploit the megafauna had a species-wide cultural impact.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
These samples are generally going to mitochondrial DNA, which isn't much use in identifying you as you and not someone else.
There is an interesting project being run using the same techniques to determine the extent of the Phoenicians' expansion across the Mediterannean.
National Geographic had a feature about it alst year.
Interesting reading.
This is one of the really amazong stories to come out of modern genetics. There is an excellent book (for all people not just scientists) called The Seven Daughters of Eve which guides you thorugh the basics of the science. (The title despite its religious overtone is really about the 7 women that 95% of all Europeans can trace their ancestry to).
There are also technical papers (there are tons but these are good places to start) here and here (this one discusses the long unknown origins of Pacific Islanders which was one of the early successes of this technique).
This study is an incredible combination of biologic science and social science, which could has the possibility to answer questions that are not able to be answered by traditional archaelogy and anthropology. It is quite amazing to think that our ancestry has been preserved, not in rock and artifact, but in our own living bodies.
Would they be able to tell if the DNA were nonhuman? Here, kitty, kitty kitty.
Archelogical evidence seems to show that they've been in Oz for at least 160,000 years. Mind you he could be right, that could be evidence of earlier Hominoid immigrants & the current aboriginal population might be descended from a later immigration within the last 60'000 years.
...when Liberals and Conservatives discover they share a common ancestry. [shudder]
Who says it has to be a cheek swab sample?
(squats over an envelope)
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
What they will find out is that we are all a product of indiscrimate breeding.
There must be countless ways of planning such a program, many of them pleasant and or humane. Though two problems remain, how to identify benefitial traits (and just what is benefitial) and how these are to be increased in frequency. So, a question for Ask Slashdot could be:
- What characteristics would a benefitial and humane eugenics program have? How would it be humanely and ethically rolled out?
Science fiction authors and films have brought up the topic in both the foreground (Gattacca, Boys from Brazil, Brave New World ) and background (Niven's Ringworld novels or StarTreck corp.'s Space Seed & Wrath of Kahn) But how would a program improve the species and remain humane? How would improvement be defined?Most tribes used to have ordeals which one must pass in order to achieve adult status and privileges, e.g. voting and marriage. Some still do. One of the First Nations in the US modified theirs to conform to US law and substituted part of the ordeal with an enlistment in the Marine Corps infantry, sending a whole platoon through once every two years.
Others have dropped the requirements. Finland, for example, used to require that people could only marry if they could read. Given the stigma and other problems back then of out of wedlock children, this gave a huge reproductive advantage to those that could read.
Others never had requirements and actually penalize stronger, healthier, or smarter individuals:
-
successful athletes are pushed harder until they are crippled or begin to break down organs and tissues or take enhancement drugs, some of which have negative long term side effects.
- successful professionals (doctors, lawyers and other highload jobs) must usually postpone or de-prioritize personal development and even family responsibilities for their careers. stress and work load often contributes to shortened involvment in child rearing
- military personell (statistically stronger and smarter than median) are put in harms way, exposed to stress and environmental pathogens which can cause physical or mental damage. death is an indefinitely, but wating until after the enlistment or going to school after adds delay, too. having kids during an enlistment has disadvantages which may or may not be significant
- academics generally have to postpone or de-prioritize personal development and even family responsibilities for their careers. The sedenatary lifestyle can also cause health problems. New faculty gunning for tenure must work a minimum 80-90 hours per week or face uprooting and relocating
- etc.
Anything that delays and/or reduces reproduction reduces the frequency of those traits in the population. Anything that shortens the useful length of life also reduces the grandparent benefit, which is a key advantage in primates like homo sapiens sapiens. So nowadays, most nations are effectively culling healthy, strong, or smart individuals.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Hence the expression,
Fatherhood is opinion, motherhood is fact.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The "Middle East" is actually called East Asia by many Asians themselves.
Science debunks many religious myths, but this interjection of yours is nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Because cell samples from male participants contain Y chromosomes as well as mitochondrial DNA (the latter which they inherited from their mothers). The point being, male participants provide more of the genetic material used in these tests than females do. Actually, for each male participant, the testing of one woman (his biological mother) becomes redundant.
Still, I think there are other factors in favor of having both males and females participate:
According to the Genographic project FAQ, male samples will be subject to the Y-DNA test only, which looks like a wasted opportunity to me. However, it could be that male participants will be suggested to upgrade their tests with Family Tree DNA if they want the mtDNA test too. I have sent mail to National Geographic asking them to clarify that particular answer.