How Europeans Evolved White Skin

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don’t look much like those of 8000 years ago.

The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus in the past year as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago.

Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection—including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection.

Interesting!

OTOH...that doesn't explain how their descendants, living in Europe ( re Attila the Hun/Hungarians ) "lost" the Ceramids in such a short time, which they apparently did, since outside of slightly slanted eyes ( but retaining the white eyelid folds, which Asians don't have ) they look 100% white.

OTOH...Eskimos have ( perhaps it's "had", since I don't know how prevalent it still is ) a predisposition towards having what's called "strawberry" birthmarks. This is a repressive gene occurrence for Hungarians as well; which pops up rarely, but does pop up.

"Yeah, I saw the original video of the big guy bullying the little store owner for a $45 box of cigars."

His mother called him "a gentle giant". Yeah! Right! As he smashes the small Asian-American's face into the countertop.

"On the other hand, what could be the level of anger and frustration that would cause a guy who it is said was college bound to destroy his future like that."

Here's as good a guess as any: A large strong body which taught him that he could easily intimidate people, plus major anger issues from growing up fatherless. A bad combo.

As far as "college bound," who claimed that? His 50-year-old great-grandmother? (OK, so I made up that last part). Hey, why stop there? Maybe the local press edited out the part where she added, "And he was going to be a Fortune 50 CEO some day as well, and then President of the USA".

Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that the phrase "college bound" is applicable to a large thug who's just robbed a store and beat up a clerk 1/3 his size, then minutes later dared cops to arrest him by walking down the middle of a street and ignoring all the cop's directives to move over, then smashing the cop's face - breaking several facial & skull bones, then charging the armed cop head-down, full ramming speed. Someone appears to be confusing College Bound with Mortuary Bound ... which is understandable if one forgets the difference between dead minds versus dead bodies.

"It also appears there were many unfair things being done to black people by the local government."

No, I think you read AG Holder's report and accepted it uncritically. It was a bunch of crap. As I recall, all of the "red flags" were nothing you wouldn't find (or find worse examples of) in any other city government in the country, large or small. Eg, 1) "Higher incarceration rates of blacks". Whoopdeedoo. 2) Huge percentage of the black arrests were of young males. Double whoopdedoo. 3) Percentage of officers of color lower than percentage of local residents of color. Yawn. In other words, the same stats you find in all urban areas.

And the DOJ additionally grabbed the Police Dept's email server looking for evidence of illegal actions or at least some kind of malfeasance, and after 1000's of hours of poring through all of them, they breathlessly announced they had found indications of systemic racism, based solely on 2 or 3 emails containing racially-tinged jokes exchanged between two PD employees. Wow! Shazzam!

So yes, if you read the MSM's headlines of Holder's / DOJ's / Obama's report on Ferguson, and believed them, and didn't seek out crucial details from wonderful web resource such as FR, then you very well could have gotten the impression you did.

Actually I was not basing my impressions of racially oriented unfairness in Ferguson on the 3 factors you mentioned. It was something about multiple fines or something like that of women and families. Have to do some checking. My own experience trying to help street vendors in my town was that you could pay the police $5 or $6,000 to harass another vendor off of a favorable corner. They would give 5 or 6 tickets at a time for $50 each (this was in the 1980s and ‘90s.) I also had a vending license selling trade show bought and my own hand made jewelry and crafts. For example you were supposed to have a blue cloth on your table one inch from the ground. If it was 2 inches from the ground you could get a ticket. We worked for years trying to get more reasonable rules. It was Democrats that were doing this to poor working people. It was this kind of stuff I read about Ferguson that struck my interest, not the same old 3 items you mentioned. I never read Holder’s report or other major report or article. Just picked up bits and pieces of reporting here and there.

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