Posted on 12/15/2005 10:05:07 PM PST by RWR8189
Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.
Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not.
In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being.
"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used to differentiate populations from around the world really are skin deep."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Democrat-dominated Klan of the 19th Century did not hate blacks -- they hated "uppity" blacks who would not follow their orders. Thus the Democrats intense hatred for Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas
Don't they always turn ugly?
Cold climes produce ongoing selection.
I remember reading somewhere along the line that Jackson had a goal of looking like Liza Minnelli (or somesuch other entertainer) at one point. Yeah, it could have been in the Enquirer but given his plastic surgery and skin color changing over the years not to mention the pedophilia inclination, it would seem he's got a real psychological problem.
Sounds like you know nothing of the relationship between skin color and ultaviolet radiation. Laugh on...
It at times gets very difficult to ignore the... 'stuff' some people are full of. Much opinion, little understanding.
Mutation occurred in ONE individual and that's where all white people come from.
Man, that guy must have been a stud muffin in bed to produce enough progeny which survived to pass on the trait.
Maybe gals came from miles around to dally with the cute white guy and get some of his mojo?
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One more reason to thank God for my wife. She's always willing to tell me when I'm wrong . . . and even sometimes when I'm not. :-)
Well, if you need help solving that mystery . . .
Quite a list of negative traits -- Neandertals were cannibals; they ate raw meat; they were violent; and of course, it's implied that they were small-brained. Elsewhere some vegetarians wrote that Neandertal ate too much meat and went extinct, while others said that our ancestors learned to eat fish, which is brain food (I'm not makin' that up). The (fortunately) late Allan Wilson of the mtDNA crowd produced the claim the Neandertal was "the village idiot" who couldn't talk because of his/her mtDNA, and therefore went extinct. In the Encyclopedia Brittanica (in the early 1970s, perhaps later) Celts are described as a group that spent all its time drinking mead and were "incapable of concerted action." My leftist sister (a professor) said the Irish had perfected just one thing -- public drunkeness. Y'know, I'm beginning to think there's a real attitude problem among academics. ;')Redheads 'are neanderthal'RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe.
by a correspondent
FreeRepublic topic
Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called “ginger gene” which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old.
They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.
Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, said: “The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.
“An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals.” It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.
Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.
The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the “ginger gene” to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in southern Spain and southwest France.
**The Democrat-dominated Klan of the 19th Century did not hate blacks -- they hated "uppity" blacks who would not follow their orders. Thus the Democrats intense hatred for Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas**
We will have to agree to disagree about this one. The party of segregation did not target blacks because they loved 'em. They targeted blacks because they did not want them integrated and it appealed to the structurally perferred majority - whites.
They are not targeting white males because they love them either. They are targeting them because it appeals to the structurally perferred majority - white women, and racial minorities. They target Christians because Chritians have always organized against their discrimination/hate schemes and doctrines and Christians holds the root of Western civilization.
"person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward"
Question 1: Did the chance flipping of 1 in 3.1 billion letters occur while these white folk were in the south.
Question 2: If these white folk were indeed in the south when the chance flipping occurred could it be possible that these white folk were [PC]"encouraged"[PC] to leave the south by the OTHERS.
But practically every picture I've seen of Adam and Eve shows that God made them white.
EVOLUTIONISTS will blame INTELIGENT DESIGNERS for this.
You know how pictures fade with age.
We're mutants, but so are brown skinned people, and blacks as well. For instance blacks have a gene (not all of them of course) which makes them more resistant to malaria, but they pay for it by being more likely to have sickle cell anemia. Similarly our light skin allows us to produce more Vitamin D in the lower sunshine of higher latitudes, but leaves us more vulnerable to sunburn and skin cancers.
Mutation is what allows evolution to proceed. Most mutations are undesirable, but they also allow species adaptation to changed conditions.
That's strange. Most animals have very simlar bone structures, and have five digits or at least the corresponding bones. Check your dog or cat's front feet for example. Take into account that they walk on the tips of their toes (corresponding to our fingers)
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