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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."
...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
What's the matter, you dont like Jenna Jamison?
love is just extroverted narcissism
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.
Because we all know how EVIL National Geographic is!
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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
Every time someone uses their hands to touch an envelope or their tongue to seal it, they are probably leaving trace amounts of *gasp* DNA on the envelope. OH NO! There's probably DNA floating around EVERYWHERE by now!
And what if they sneezed a little virus particle onto the letter that they wrote to you!?
-- 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)
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
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.
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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."
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...
...when it turned out your paternal line came from the mailman? ;)
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.
> I watch CSI, you know!
I've never heard this on CSI: "We searched CODIS and the National Geographic DNA Database."
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.
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
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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.
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.
>There's probably DNA floating around EVERYWHERE by now!
Human skin flakes, a.k.a. dander, is everywhere that humans are. It just flakes off and floats away.
It's kinda creepy to think that every breathe we take may include a little bit of the person in the next cubicle. Remind me to hand out loofas at the next staff meeting.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
>> I watch CSI, you know!
>I've never heard this on CSI: "We searched CODIS and the National Geographic DNA Database."
No? It was the same episode where they searched Slashdot for people who could take a joke. They didn't find anything.
> 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.
This doesn't make sense to me. 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? It makes more sense to infer (at least if you believe in a certain religion) that your religion must be the 'only religion', otherwise the central tenets of what 'religion' is fail.
-- There, everybody likes a gorilla.
Africa as a starting point is relatively unquestioned. Even theories which point to reverse migration back into Africa still acknowledge it as the point of origin.
;-)
The first man being "Adam" is a geneticist convention. Given that the Y-chromosome remains unaltered during reproduction aside from mutation and retrovirus based alterations, and the differences in modern day Y-chromosomes are extremely small within humanity, but (relatively speaking) extremely large with other primates, there have been several theories pointing to either one, or a very small number of males that acted as the progenitors for modern day humans.
For the last, those maps already exist, based on years of study, they are probably using them as a basis for study to confirm or refute specific branches. It's known as a hypothesis, scientists use them occasionally.
-ShadowRanger
For the recrod, this isn't the first study of human migratory patterns. Many migration routes are now well established, whereas others are in debate and should be studied further. This study will help establish better timelines, settle controversies, and maybe even provide fresh theories to be tested. They are not "fitting data to preconceived notions" just because they are using the current body of knowledge as a starting point for their study.
AFAIK the African origins of humankind are fairly well established. The fact that genetic anthropologists decided to call the oldest known common male ancestor "adam" and the oldest female one "eve" just shows that they have a sense of humour and history, not that what they do is quackery.
So, yes, it is science.
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.
Actually, the chapter 1 story (and 2:1--4a) and chapter 2:4b--3.24 stories in Genesis are *different* stories, combined by a later "redactor." Chapter 1 is commonly called "P" for "Priestly" source, while Chapter 2 is commonly called "J" for "Yahweh".
Even in translation the styles are starkly different.
> Firstly, the contention that human's originated
> from Africa is highly debatable.
Uh, no... it's not. Too much evidence from too many disparate fields. Most Creationists still aren't ready to accept it, but I wouldn't call that much of a debate. Linguistics, archeology, paleontology, genetics, etc... all point to the widely established theory that Africa is the orginial home of the hominids, we sapiens included.
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)
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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
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
First of all, your link is broken.
Secondly, talk of aborigenese being... less human than the rest of humanity is... icky, at best. Google for "Truganini", see the kind of things people have done with the excuse of racial superiority (hint: genocide).
Some say they were part homo erectus.
Yeah, er, we're all part homo erectus... on account of descending from them.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
I wouldn't say that the romans were particularly interested in adopting other religions. I think that their take on Judiaism and Christianity bear that out. For the romans religion was a reason to get together and party, and to command respect (the emporor was a god.)
When pesky ideas like God being more powerful than Ceasar, or eternal rewards sprang up after as a result of their conquest of the middle east they did all that they could to contain (in the case of judiasm) or quash (in the case of Chrisitanity) ideas that did not mesh with their own.
Religious conflict is almost always a cultural conflict at its root, that is to say it doesn't matter if the waring parties believe in the same thing, they can still manage to fight about religion (see 30 years war)
As far as christians adopting other practices that is very true (see Christmas/Saturnalia) but becomes more difficult with increasing heirarchy. But when a sect is relatively removed from the chain of command any religion will evolve and merge with native customs, for example voodoo, santa ria (sp?) and other slave island religions. Organizing a religion is really an attempt to preserve the culture in an unaltered state.
Religion is really only an excuse not to get along, the real reason for almost all religious conflicts is more deeply rooted than a belief system. It just helps make the boots on the ground think they are fighting for something more meaningful. Basically from 1950-1980 capatalism was th US's religion and communism had to be over thrown for the same reason that in the roman times christianity had to be overthrown.
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.
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.
Yes, about 74,000 years ago.
Yes, there is a supervolcano under Yellowstone. And it could blow anytime on a geological time scale. But it hasn't erupted for about 600,000 years.
The Toba supervolcano in Indonesia is deemed responsible for the genetic bottleneck observed in human DNA, IIRC.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Get back to me when you have read a few hundred books, and maybe we can talk then....
Way ahead of you.
The link works fine for me. Play with it some.
Sigh, it's hosted on tripod, if someone clicks your link, they get this. However, once I manually copied the link, clicking it brings me to the correct location.
I ain't white. That threw a wrench into your little program, didn't it?
Nope, what you said is still crap. And now you just added the stupid notion of "only whites can be racist" on top of your "teehee, aborigenese look different... they must be less evolved" load of BS.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
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.
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.