Humans Nearly Went Extinct 1.2M Years Ago

Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has a story on researchers from the University of Utah who have calculated that 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors Homo erectus, H. ergaster, and archaic H. sapiens were spreading through Africa, Europe, and Asia, there were probably only about 18,500 individuals capable of breeding in all these species together (PNAS paper here). Pre-humans were an endangered species with a smaller population than today's gorillas and chimpanzees. Researchers scanned two completely sequenced modern human genomes for a type of mobile element called Alu sequences, then compared the nucleotides in these old regions with the overall diversity in the two genomes to estimate differences in effective population size, and thus genetic diversity between modern and early humans. Human geneticist Lynn Jorde says that the diminished genetic diversity one million years ago suggests human ancestors experienced a catastrophic event at that time as devastating as the Toba super-volcano in Indonesia that triggered a nuclear winter and is thought to have nearly annihilated humans 70,000 years ago."

Comments

This means ...

[BlackPignouf]

this means that we're really all brothers and sisters, right?

say that to the tasmanian wolf

[chichilalescu]

(not trying to rain on your parade or anything)
Back on topic. Humans nearly went extinct during the nuclear missile crysis... In terms of survival requirements, we should have already sent a few groups to the moon and mars.
People enjoy watching disaster movies like 2012 (I saw it as a comedy myself), but they should realise that focusing all your resources (as a species) on "I want a TV in every room" is a losing strategy.
If I had the money, I would be long gone. "Yes, 21st century society is very advanced and we have everything we need, but if they have a power outage or similar in a hidden bunker in Russia, we all die".

Re:say that to the tasmanian wolf

[corbettw]

Humans nearly went extinct during the nuclear missile crysis [sic]

Nuclear war would not have wiped out humanity. It could've killed tens of millions of people immediately, and maybe hundreds of millions more after two years of poor crops and contaminated water, but large pockets would've survived pretty much unscathed. Most of South America, Africa, and Australasia (with the obvious exception of Australia itself on the coasts) would not have been hit at all, in all likelihood. And life would've been rough for those people for a few years, the earth has phenomenal ability to heal itself. Hell, people live in Hiroshima and have picnics at ground zero; I hardly doubt later nuclear weapons would've had longer-lasting effects than the first weak, but extremely dirty, bombs did.

Re:"Nuclear" Winter

[Anonymous Coward]

The effects might be similar, but the fact remains that they're different things. The end effect of a brain aneurism is also "nearly identical" to being shot in the head - you die due to loss of brain function. There's nothing "nuclear" about climatic changes brought about by volcanic activity. It's a thoughtless grasp for "gee-wiz" vocabulary, and thus bad journalism.

Re:Insightful Troll!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

If this is a troll, it must be a kick-ass troll ...

I think parent poster should be getting insightful instead; talking about not trusting blindly; even if it is science ... It's only with an open mind, more options can be found. Remember; there used to be science about the earth being flat ages ago.

"not trusting it blind, even if it is science", "open mind", "science used to be wrong" etc are expressions and phrases very heavily overused by creationists. He gives the game away by saying things like, "I used to be an Atheist", "science wants simple answers", "Science is as irrational as Wahhabism". It is very difficult to tell a troll from a true believer in Creationism. If Creationist walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, let us just call him a duck and be done with it.

Re:Pfft...

[xouumalperxe]

I mean, the whole race started from just two people, right?

More like from a guy having sex with his rib.