All Humans Are Mutants, Say Scientists

Hugh Pickens writes "In 1935, JBS Haldane, one of the founders of modern genetics, studied a group of men with the blood disease hemophilia and speculated that there would be about 150 new mutations in each human being. Now BBC reports that scientists have used next generation sequencing technology to produce a far more direct and reliable estimate of the number of mutations by looking at thousands of genes belonging to two Chinese men who are distantly related, having shared a common ancestor who was born in 1805. To establish the rate of mutation, the team examined an area of the Y chromosome which is unique because, apart from rare mutations, the Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son so mutations accumulate slowly over the generations. Despite many generations of separation, researchers found only 12 differences among all the DNA letters examined. The two Y chromosomes were still identical at 10,149,073 of the 10,149,085 letters examined."

Comments

Article title seems stupid to me

[Mathinker]

Given what we know about biology, every living thing, including viruses, are mutants (or at least descendants of mutants).

The article title has to be one of the more braindead ones I've seen here on Slashdot, and I've been around for a while. (And somehow I don't understand how it's connected with the information in the summary.)

OTOH, I'm real tired....

Re:Um... statistically significant?

[poopdeville]

No. You don't. The certainty of the inference is just low. This is a fine start, and new data will be added as genetic sequencing becomes cheaper.

Too little, too late

[macraig]

We've already taken control of our own evolution, for better or worse:

"It is hoped that the findings may lead to new ways to reduce mutations and provide insights into human evolution."

Does anyone else see the conflict of interest inherent in that statement? This is what we humans do: we change the system before we even understand it. We try to "cure" autism before we even grasp its genetic or evolutionary significance.

"We are finally obtaining good reliable estimates of genetic features that are urgently needed to understand who we are genetically."

We won't ever be able to get an accurate answer to this question: we've already been busy contaminating the evidence. We worry about seeding Mars or other planets with terrestrial microbes before we get a chance to conclusively rule out independent signs of life, but we think nothing of poisoning our own genetic well before we even understand what's down there and why.

"Despite many generations of separation"

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

7-10 generations isn't that many...