Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

East Asian Physical Traits Linked to 35,000-Year-Old Mutation
NY Times ^ | February 14, 2013 | NICHOLAS WADE

Posted on 02/15/2013 1:33:40 AM PST by Pharmboy

Gaining a deep insight into human evolution, researchers have identified a mutation in a critical human gene as the source of several distinctive traits that make East Asians different from other races.

Researchers have identified a mutation in a gene that confers several distinct traits to East Asians, including thicker hair.

The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded.

snip

The first of those sites to be studied contains the gene known as EDAR. Africans and Europeans carry the standard version of the gene, but in most East Asians, one of the DNA units has mutated.

Seeking to understand if the gene was the cause of thicker hair in East Asians with the variant gene, a team of researchers led by Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., decided to test the gene in mice, where its effects could be more easily explored.

...The Broad team engineered a strain of mice whose EDAR gene had the same DNA change as the East Asian version of EDAR.

When the mice grew up, the researchers found they did indeed have thicker hair shafts, confirming that the changed gene was the cause of East Asians’ thicker hair. But the gene had several other effects, they report in Thursday’s issue of the journal Cell.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: genes; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; humanevolution; races
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-48 next last
To: patton

Maybe they left because they got tired of having to take care of and feed those that didn’t plan ahead.

Those that consumed their food all at once and only wanted to feed themselves on a day to day basis, and if they couldn’t feed themselves on a day to day basis they simply took food from others that did plan ahead and didn’t consume their food all at once.

Some of the tribes in Africa are still that way. Hunt and gather enough to feed themselves for a day.


21 posted on 02/15/2013 5:45:06 AM PST by IMR 4350
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Psiman

>Evilution is a satanic lie

Salivation is for the drooling masses.


22 posted on 02/15/2013 5:45:58 AM PST by soycd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Pharmboy

The yellow fever gene, because obviously the gene was selected for via sex...


23 posted on 02/15/2013 5:50:10 AM PST by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
...as the source of several distinctive traits that make East Asians different from other races.

That's the part of the opening sentence that caught my eye. Wade has been getting a bit un-PC lately. I think he even believes that genes affect intelligence--horror of horrors.

24 posted on 02/15/2013 5:52:08 AM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

[ Finns do better on those tests than East Asians, or anybody else. Ashkenazim Jews do second best. ]

The colder it is the smarter you are!!!!

Keep your eyes on those laplanders and eskimoes, they are just waiting for us to make a mistake and then they move in and take everything over....


25 posted on 02/15/2013 5:52:27 AM PST by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: IMR 4350

>Maybe they left because they got tired of having to take care of and feed those that didn’t plan ahead.

Looks like many migrated to chitcago, detroit and many other northern cities. When the takers exhaust the loot they will move on again or die off.


26 posted on 02/15/2013 5:52:44 AM PST by soycd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Pharmboy

There are two conflicting notions here that co-exist. While mutation certainly happens, and happens a lot, the overwhelming majority of mutations are unsuccessful, either resulting in failure, or never leading to expression, or preservation in the genetic line.

Therefore, natural selection can pick and choose its choices from among available ancient and recent mutations, and in a relatively few generations, create a new dominant pattern or subspecies.

But wait, there’s more. Over much longer periods of time, species try to develop a “chromosomal balance”, in which they might have more chromosomes for greater diversity, or fewer chromosomes, to save energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_by_chromosome_count

For this reason, the organism with the most known number of chromosomes is actually a fern, known as “Adders-tongue” with 1440 chromosomal pairs. Humans only have 46.

And oddly enough, for uncounted generations, the human species is trying to *lower* that number. Our two sex chromosomes, ‘X’ and ‘Y’, used to both be ‘X’, but one of the ‘X’s lost one of its “legs”, so is now a ‘Y’ chromosome, called the male sex chromosome.

And the ‘Y’ chromosome is on the way out. The species is moving to cull it from our genome, and the current ‘X’ sex chromosome will become a ‘Y’, and another ‘X’ chromosome will take its place.

Right now, one of the predominant causes of retardation is called “fragile ‘X’ syndrome”, in which these children’s ‘X’ sex chromosome has a weak or detached “leg”.

No one quite knows how, when there is a successful human mutation to 45 chromosomes, how or if they will be able to reproduce with 46 chromosome humans.


27 posted on 02/15/2013 5:55:43 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: abclily

According to this slide presentation
http://www.threeimpacts-twoevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/COMET-IMPACT-ANALYSIS-AND-EFFECTS-3JAN2013-WEBSITE.pdf
a world-wide flood was caused by a very large comet impact, meaning that the Earth was a much different place for most of its history. If true, then it was much warmer in the abyss due to atmospheric pressure - explaining, perhaps, why we have no fur. Vastly more inhabitable space could plausibly account for the differences among us. Presently exposed landscapes were mostly uninhabited due to the cold, and so scientists are working with incomplete information (and have been, unwittingly).


28 posted on 02/15/2013 6:03:59 AM PST by mj81
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: soycd

It is a trait of the black race more so than any other race and it’s the same all over the planet not just the US.

They progress just enough to feed themselves then the progression stops until they need to progress again to feed themselves again.

When they are being fed the progression stops.

This trait isn’t confined to just the black race but it is more common in the black race.

“Don’t feed the bears” same principle.


29 posted on 02/15/2013 6:17:50 AM PST by IMR 4350
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Pharmboy

What are the “characteristically identified teeth” that the article refers to? How are they different?


30 posted on 02/15/2013 6:18:50 AM PST by RadiationRomeo (Step into my mind and glimpse the madness that is me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RadiationRomeo
Great question...East Asians have what are called "shovel incisors" which have a distinct anatomy not shared by Euros or Africans (or by the Indians of the sub-continent, either).

One of the main bits of evidence for Wolpoff's multi-regional hypothesis (that is, the theory that races originated early, before we were Homo sapiens but rather while we were Homo erectus) was the fact the Peking Man from 400,000 years ago also had shovel incisors. That's why this was so important to the researchers: if they could show that shovel incisors were "only" 35k years old, then the Peking Man similarity could be marked up to a coincidence.

31 posted on 02/15/2013 6:35:20 AM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: IMR 4350

If you are arguing that environmental stress can cause changes in behavior, then I agree.

And taxation is a form of environmental stress.


32 posted on 02/15/2013 6:38:53 AM PST by patton (Tinker toys, watches, and shiny things - we all sell rocks for a living.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Pharmboy
"Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., decided to test the gene in mice, where its effects could be more easily explored."

The next test:


33 posted on 02/15/2013 6:38:57 AM PST by Boogieman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: abclily

[If man first evolved in Africa, why aren’t Africans away ahead of the rest of us in intelligence and accomplishments? ]

Because those who ventured into the icelands were forced to adapt or die.


34 posted on 02/15/2013 6:39:18 AM PST by TArcher
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Pharmboy

Thanks Pharmboy.

But this begs another question. If American indians are descendents of east Asians then why don’t they have shovel incisors? (or do they?)


35 posted on 02/15/2013 6:41:25 AM PST by RadiationRomeo (Step into my mind and glimpse the madness that is me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: patton

Now we are seeing migrations because of economic stress.

People are tired of producing to provide for the non-producers so they are leaving for a location where what they produce goes to provide for themselves and those they CHOOSE to provide for.

I think it’s possible the same thing happened 100’s of thousands of years ago or whenever they left Africa.

The producers are the ones that always wandered further and further out from the group to hunt or gather the food for the others.

Maybe one day they decided “Why take this food back to the group there is more for us if we don’t. Let them hunt and gather their own food.” and they just kept going.

Maybe “Out of Africa” was because socialism was a failure then just as it is now.


36 posted on 02/15/2013 7:42:07 AM PST by IMR 4350
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: RadiationRomeo
Yes, they do.


37 posted on 02/15/2013 7:53:28 AM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: IMR 4350

Interesting - and entirely possible.

Isn’t that why the Irish, for example, migrated to the US? For a chance to produce for themselves?


38 posted on 02/15/2013 7:57:45 AM PST by patton (Tinker toys, watches, and shiny things - we all sell rocks for a living.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: patton

Just look at the illegals from Mexico.

The first ones that came didn’t come to mooch off the system, they came to work and send some money back to their families in Mexico.

A lot have stayed to work but they no longer send as much or any money back they keep it for themselves.

Now a lot aren’t coming to work but to mooch off the system.

It’s people with an inner desire to have more that has driven progress, not the people that are content with what they can get from the people that have more.

I believe human progress has pretty much been driven by producers with a desire to rid themselves of takers.


39 posted on 02/15/2013 8:28:58 AM PST by IMR 4350
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: IMR 4350
Well, not sure I agree here, FRiend...there are no slackers in hunting-gathering societies. Everyone does something, or they do not share in the food.

I think what you describe best fits with life after agriculture arose and there came an elected body who could maintain their power by redistributing others' wealth. But I sure get your point.

40 posted on 02/15/2013 9:45:23 AM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-48 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson