Neanderthal Yields Nuclear DNA

BBC ^ | 5-16-2006

[SunkenCiv]

Taste for flesh troubled Neanderthals
by Dr Damian Carrington
BBC News Online
Monday, 12 June, 2000

The extinction of the Neanderthals could have been caused by their choosy appetites - they ate virtually nothing but meat... "They were picky eaters," says Dr Paul Pettitt, at the University of Oxford, UK. "And this tells me that they are really unchanging - doing the same old thing year after year... Neanderthals were excellent hunters," Dr Petitt told BBC News Online. "But the issue that was at stake was whether they hunted every day of their lives or whether it was just a summer outing." ...The early humans themselves may have been better hunters than the Neanderthals, depriving them of their kills. Or the hunted animals may have been struck by disease or migrated away.

Neandertal WENT EXTINCT because he ate too much meat. Nothing political about that, eh?

[Varda]

I'm looking around for evidence of mtDNA recombination and its possible effect on the human genome and have found nothing so far. Panda's thumb talks about it,
"I asked Reed Cartright - a real biologist - to work out what effect paternal recombination of mtDNA means to Mitochondrial Eve. It turns out, as mathematical modeling often does, to be surprising. It makes very little difference at all. The following graph shows that until the rate of individual recombination is very high, paternal mtDNA does very little to estimates of mtEve.

The graph shows how the recombination of nuclear DNA affects estimates of the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA). 1e-8 (1 in 10 to the 8th power, or one in each 100 million) is the estimate for nuclear recombination rates. MTDNA rates are for many reasons many-fold less than this. So the effect is at worst minimal, and at best affects mtEve not at all."

[Varda]

Yea, meat eating is harmful..rrright. I guess that's why Eskimos had so much trouble surviving in the Arctic.

[SunkenCiv]

I'd agree with that 1990s estimate, very little effect -- because there never was a mitochondrial eve.

[SunkenCiv]

Regarding grilling... what do you use to marinate (if anything)?

[Straight Vermonter]

If those 2 are neandertals it is no wonder they died out.

[Varda]

That Panda's Thumb estimate is from 2004. While I'm an "Out of Africa" advocate, I'm not convinced by the Mitochondrial clock argument either. Genetics is a field that seems to be galloping along. I'm confident this will be worked out sooner rather than later.

As for steak, I prefer a prime cut to marinade. If I need to marinade, I like to use a good red wine, Malbec or Cabernet. I follow the old saying, "If you don't want to drink it, don't cook with it". Wine and meat, I'm sure our ancient ancestors would approve.

[SunkenCiv]

Yum.

[S0122017]

So even though neanderthals used self-made tools, took care of their wounded and handicapped and at least once buried dead with flowers, you still see them as apes?

If apes did the things neanderthals did I doubt they would be a delicatesse in Africa.

[S0122017]

First of all they prefer to be called Inuit.
Secondly the average life-span of Inuit is 45 years.

Im sure the cold has something to do with it but not as much as the diet, since they have ways to fight of the cold. The simply lack too many nutrients in their diet.

[S0122017]

I'd agree with that 1990s estimate, very little effect -- because there never was a mitochondrial eve.

Why don't you believe there was a mitochondrial eve?

[Varda]

Eskimo is the appropriate term for the wide range of Arctic dwellers from western Alaska to Greenland. Inuit is a linguistic term not appropriate for all those peoples. While it's been fashionable in liberal circles to claim offense in the name of various native peoples, I'm sure if I were a non-Inuit speaking Eskimo being called an Inuit is what would offend me.

Secondly, 45 years seems pretty good for a low tech people living in such an extreme environment. The traditional Arctic diet is a marvel (low cancer, heart disease, diabetes rates) and known to be nutrient rich and complete. Modern Eskimos do have diet problems, it's due to the introduction of the modern diet. Google up a few articles about it. One things for sure, there's a lot we don't know about proper human nutrition.

[SunkenCiv]

The "studies" showing one, just one, ancient mama, were spun to the conclusion which miraculously matches the assumptions. The obnoxious a-hole (now deceased, and good riddance) who pushed the crap spewed a steady stream of stupid, hateful things (kinda like I just did) regarding early human varieties he didn't like (IOW, he was a bigot) as well as those in professional specialties he disagreed with. He wasn't a scientist, regardless of the dots and letters after his name, and instead belongs in the same category as Lysenko.

He didn't invent Replacement, he just agreed with it, which isn't surprising, since it is nothing but a master race theory, and he was a bigot.

[S0122017]

that certainly answers my question :)

[S0122017]

I searched using altavista and this is what I found:

Atkins proponents are fond of citing the Inuit (Eskimo) diet which is almost 100% animal protein/fat based and yet these indigenous people have very low levels of heart disease. What is not highlighted is the fact that the Inuit have low life-expectancy and one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world.
http://www.energygrid.com/health/2004/05ap-atkins.html

The health benefits abound. Much research was gathered by studying the Inuit diet with a ratio of n-6:n-3 of 1:2.5 and other cultures (Okinawa, Japan for example) that consumed much of their dietary fat from fish in the 6:1 ratios. The Inuit (Eskimo) diet consisted almost exclusively of meat (there is very little space to grow “greens or grains” in the Arctic) and their meat source was overwhelmingly from the sea. Hence, their intake of rather high ratios of n-3 FA gave them near insusceptibility against cardiovascular disease. Since about the turn of the last century our ratios have changed drastically to that of about 20:1 and as a consequence we suffer a grave n-3 FA deficiency. This dietary state happens to be a pro-inflammatory condition. There are very strong scientifically proven connections between diets low in n-3 FA and higher incidences of a number of diseases. They include cardiovascular disease. Heart attacks and strokes are more common in people not consuming enough of this essential FA. There is even a connection with multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and depression, and even osteoporosis. http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=2375

In a more recent study of Yupik Eskimos living in southwestern Alaska, scientists found an advantage to a diet high in salmon, marine mammals, and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids. These Eskimos succumbed to circulatory disease at only one-third the rate of those on modern Western diets in the United States. However, an important caveat is that these studies did not look at other factors, such as exercise levels, which are known to have an impact on heart disease. The Eskimo diet is extremely limited due to a lack of food diversity (particularly plants) in the harsh arctic environment, especially compared to the one around the East African lakes. However, another group of modern hunter-gatherers—the Australian Aborigines—consumes a more varied fare, from various vegetables and seeds to wild animals and fish. The Aborigines are of special interest to nutritionists because they show little or no evidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in their natural environment, yet suffer as much as the rest of us when adopting the diet and lifestyle of the West. Looking into the phenomenon, nutrition researchers Joan M. Naughton and Kerin O’Dea of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Andrew J. Sinclair of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology traced the Aboriginal advantage to traditional foods, especially the levels and types of fat in their diet.

The scientists analyzed the traditional Aboriginal diet across a wide range of geographic regions, from the tropical coast of the north through the vast, arid center to the cooler climates of the south. The specific foods varied greatly, with some Aborigines getting as much as 64 percent of their calories from animal foods. But even in this last group, saturated fat in the diet is uniformly low and the essential fatty acid content, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, fairly high. This is because wild game have very little saturated fat and relatively high levels of essential fatty acids when compared to domesticated animals. This fatty acid profile is a consequence of the wild animal species’ consumption of wild plants containing high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. This is analogous to the absence of omega-3 fatty acids in farm-raised fish versus wild fish if the “domesticated” fish are not fed nutrients from the sea. http://www.omegabrite.com/doc/book/03.pdf

Conclusion:

Western diet sucks.

[SunkenCiv]

Sorry, I guess I'm just holding back. ;')

[S0122017]

I found something else that is interesting!

"The traditional Eskimo diet for most of the year subsists on almost no vegetables at all, but they get their vitamins from organ meats and things like eyeball which are a delicacy, or were."

"So, you don't really need it, but sure, vegetables are good for you and you should eat them. They are part of the diet that I would recommend, and that is where you'll get your vitamin C. I recommend Vitamin C supplements, I don't have anything against taking supplements, I use a lot of them."

If I may summarize, it appears western meat has insane amounts of the wrong saturated fat, almost no omega-3 and -6, and western people avoid eating the parts of the animals that have essential nutrients such as vitamins. http://www.angelfire.com/ny2/bass/rosedale2.html

Sure, Inuit/Eskimos may be on a 100% meat diet but it is like super meat compared to the mass produced slabs of fat and muscle that you find in a shop, and they STILL live way shorter than other people that live under similar primitive conditions.

If you want to eat 100% meat it is your decision but in light of the information above, perhaps some fruit with your meat would do well.

[SunkenCiv]

Here's a topic about another "study" which is even shoddier, because the conclusions are obviously mistaken, and are not even based on inherently misleading (that's irrespective of recombination) mtDNA data, merely "using estimated patterns of migration throughout history".

We are all related to man who lived in Asia in 1,415BC
Telegraph | David Derbyshire
Posted on 01/25/2006 3:00:47 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1564482/posts

[tomzz]

way ahead of you...

[S0122017]

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin wanted to create a "living war machine" composed of warriors who were half-man and half-ape.

Deja vu