Several days ago, Carl Zimmer, wrote a piece on a curious segment of the human genome, spanning 6 genes on Chromosome 3. This segment is unique in that 63% of Bangladeshi's carry at least one copy, and about 1/3 of of South Asians carry this variant. In Europe, only 8% of people carry this segment,... Continue Reading →
A Modern Human Genetic Adaptation for Diving
The Bajau people of Indonesia are known as "Sea Nomads," because we've known that for thousands of years they live in houseboats, sustaining their diets after spending hours each day hunting fish or other sea creatures underwater. Bajau divers can spend up to 13 minutes free diving to 70 m depths underwater all with only... Continue Reading →
Oldest Human DNA from Africa Clues Us On Ancient Moroccan Heritage
In 2015 the first African ancient genome of 4,500-year-old human remains found in Ethiopia were published. Now more ancient Africa DNA has been found and published. The study I am referring to came out in Science which outlines the findings of seven 15,000-year-old modern humans from Morocco. This paper now holds the results of the oldest human DNA ever... Continue Reading →
Five Neanderthal Genomes Tell Us More Than Ever
We've been quite limited by our ancient DNA of Neanderthals due to limited sample size from the fossil record and then compounded with degradation and contamination of DNA. Last week, Nature, published a fantastic article ultimately from Svante Pääbo and Janet Kelso on a novel way to extract more DNA from less fossil sample; using... Continue Reading →
The New York Times published a Sunday Review that I think you all will find a balanced opinion on genetics and race.
Is Genetics Changing Our Understanding Race?
Denisovans & Modern Humans Introgressed At Least Twice
Sharon Browning and colleagues published a paper in Cell last week that shows there are uniquely different Denisovan genomes in the DNA of East Asian individuals, indicating that interbreeding with Homo sapiens happened in two independent episodes. See we already knew Aboriginal genomes from Australia and Papua New Guinea contain fragments of Denisovan DNA. Introgression of... Continue Reading →
The Yamnaya Horsemen & Root of Proto-Indo-European Language
Proto-Indo-European or PIE is the term coined for a ancestral language to the group of languages from Europe and parts of Asia, like English, Spanish, Hindi, Russian and Persian. No written record of PIE exists. We infer PIE because many of these languages have similar words, like mother, indicating they share a common root language.... Continue Reading →
Ancient DNA Reveal the Foundation Event of the Peopling of the Americas
At a site known today as the Upward Sun River, near the Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska, Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks unearthed the cremated remains of a 3-year-old child in 2010. About a meter deep, and three years later, two infants were found buried in a circular pit filled with grave goods... Continue Reading →
The Effect of Diet Changes and The Selection of European Fatty Acid Desaturases
UC Berkeley Integrative Biologist, Rasmus Nielsen and his colleagues, published a fascinating study in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution looking at hundreds of human genomes and the relative diets. They were even able to include the genomes of 101 Europeans from 5,000 years ago, during the Bronze Age as well as Neanderthals and Denisovan genes. The authors... Continue Reading →
The Genetics of Inuit Cold Weather Adaptation
A new study in the journal Molecular Biology & Evolution analyzed the genomes of nearly 200 Inuits, looking particularly at TBX15/WARS2 alleles that affect body fat distribution. They compared these alleles to other people, as well as prehistoric populations like the Neanderthals and one Denisovan. Their comparative analysis identified unique alleles within these loci that... Continue Reading →
