Posted on 05/10/2008 2:13:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Druze people of Israel are a genetic sanctuary of ancient lineages of DNA, researchers reported on Wednesday... The researchers looked at mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that is passed down virtually unchanged from mother to daughter. It can provide a kind of snapshot of the ancestry of a person... The mitochondrial DNA backed up the legendary origin of this close-knit religious group, believed to number 1 million or fewer. For instance, Skorecki's team discovered an unusually high frequency of a haplogroup, or a distinct collection of genetic markers, called haplogroup X. Haplogroup X is rare but is found around the world among diverse groups... Marriage outside the group is discouraged, first cousins often marry, and it is impossible to convert to the religion, an offshoot of Islam... "The populations with the smallest genetic distances to the Druze were: Turks, Armenians, Iranians and Egyptians," ... "You can look at 150 kinds of mitochondrial DNA within one group with a similar environment, and be able to see the specific contribution of these variations," Skorecki said in a statement... "Since they are comprised of so many distinct lineages, genetic disease may vary from clan to clan and village to village," said Skorecki, who found genetic evidence that modern-day Jewish priests, called Kohanim, are descendants of a single common male ancestor. This would be consistent with legend that the Kohanim are the descendants of the Biblical high priest Aaron.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I expect so but, I don't know what it is.
That's intriguing...but, I'd expect to see 'X' out in the Pacific Islands if true.
Some of the samples will have the X Factor genes. Others are going to show mitochondrial DNA configurations typical of SE Asian populations of that time.
That will address the issue here where we have people with Dravidian traditions regarding reincarnation combined in a population with X Factor genes.
Ohhhhhhh... see, this is the reason I stopped going to live stand-up comedy shows. Need that rewind button.
Fathers can be influential tooBiologists have warned for some years that paternal mitochondria do penetrate the human egg and survive for several hours... Erika Hagelberg from the University of Cambridge, UK, and colleagues... were carrying out a study of mitochondrial DNAs from hundreds of people from Papua-New Guinea and the Melanesian islands in order to study the history of human migration into this region of the western Pacific... People from all three mitochondrial groups live on Nguna. And, in all three groups, Hagelberg's group found the same mutation, a mutation previously seen only in an individual from northern Europe, and nowhere else in Melanesia, or for that matter anywhere else in the world... Adam Eyre-Walker, Noel Smith and John Maynard Smith from the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK confirm this view with a mathematical analysis of the occurrence of the so-called 'homoplasies' that appear in human mitochondrial DNA... reanalysis of a selection of European and African mitochondrial DNA sequences by the Sussex researchers suggests that recombination is a far more likely cause of the homoplasies, as they find no evidence that these sites are particularly variable over all lineages.
by Eleanor LawrenceIs Eve older than we thought?"Two studies prove that the estimation of both when and where humanity first arose could be seriously flawed... The ruler scientists have been using is based on genetic changes in mitochondria, simple bacteria that live inside us and control the energy requirements of our cells. Mitochondria are passed from mother to daughter and their genes mutate at a set rate which can be estimated - so many mutations per 1,000 years... However, these calculations are based upon a major assumption which, according to Prof John Maynard Smith, from Sussex University, is 'simply wrong'. The idea that underpins this dating technique is that mitochondria, like some kinds of bacteria, do not have sex... Two groups of researchers, Prof Maynard Smith and colleagues Adam Eyre-Walker and Noel Smith, also from Sussex, and Dr Erika Hagelberg and colleagues from the University of Otago, New Zealand, have found that mitochondria do indeed have sex - which means that genes from both males and females is mixed and the DNA in their offspring is very different... Prof Maynard Smith and his colleagues stumbled over mitochondria having sex in the process of tracking the spread of bacterial resistance to meningitis... For the 'out-of-Africa' theory to hold water, the first population would have to have been very small. Sexually rampant mitochondria may put paid to this idea. Maynard Smith thinks that the origin of humanity is much older - may be twice as old - which, according to Eyre-Walker, means we are likely to have evolved in many different areas of the world and did not descend from Eve in Africa."
by Sanjida O'Connell 15th April 1999
There was an interesting program on public TV about the Druzes a few months ago. They actually seemed to have a quite attractive culture, especially for that corner of the world. Can’t really blame them for not wanting to mix with most of what surrounds them.
The info about the Ojibway Indians having 25% x perhaps adds to the possibility that Clovis culture may have been influenced by French Solutrian stone age culture traveling to this continent. Also, does anyone know the haplogroup for the Basques?
The information about possible male contribution to mitochondrial DNA is quite interesting. Also, I wonder if the rate of mutation takes into consideration possible changes in cosmit inputs. I am thinking specifically about Firestone’s book about Cosmic Catastrophes and 3 major blasts of different types over almost 30,000 years.
I have to laugh, those sexy mitochondria, really mixing things up for serious scientists.
DNA migrations 12,000 years ago
Yup. My thoughts too.
Indians on the east coast have 'sticky' ear wax like Europeans and Africans...Indians on the west coast have 'flaky' ear wax like Asians.
:’)
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