Evidence Of Very Recent Human Adaptation: Up To 10 Percent Of Human Genome May Have Changed

Science Daily ^ | 7-12-2007 | Cornell University

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[mnehring]

bump for later read

[babygene]

“10 percent of the human genome to change in some populations in the last 15,000 to 100,000 years, when people began migrating from Africa.”

Does this mean that those that did not migrate did not evolve leaving them different than those that did?

[ovrtaxt]

From: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/08/68468

The epigenome can change according to an individual's environment, and is passed from generation to generation.

A very interesting article.

[babygene]

Not withstanding his statement:

“It is important to emphasize that the research does not state that one group is more evolved or better adapted than another,” said co-author Carlos Bustamante, a Cornell assistant professor of biological statistics and computational biology. “Rather as humans have populated the world, there has been strong selective pressure at the genetic level for fortuitous mutations that allow digestion of a new food source or tolerate infection by a pathogen that the population may not have faced in a previous environment.”

Do if sense PC-talk?

[ConservaTexan]

Liberals are proof of recent devolution.

[mnehring]

I think it’s been shown through the genome that even those who we consider native in Africa are descendants of the big migration. (ie, same genetic evolution.)

[babygene]

Where did you dig that up? Certainly not from the article, it seems to be saying otherwise...

Perhaps you studied that in diversity class.

[Redcloak]

Some of what they're pointing to as "natural selection" may not be natural at all. Things like skin color are likely the result of selective breeding; our ancestors picking mates based on their ideals of beauty. In other words, you look the way you do because your great-great-great-great- ... -great-great grandmother/grandfather thought that fill-in-the-blank looked sexy.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

From a Macroevolutionary viewpoint, Africans would still evolve--as would the new non-Africans.

From the Creationist viewpoint, it wouldn't be 'evolve.' It would be simply natural selection for things such as skin pigmentation (light skin absorbs more vitamin D is sun-deprived areas), and mutations (overwhelmingly detrimental).

[narby]

A very interesting article.

Your body reacts with it's environment to turn genes on and off. What's such a big deal about that?

Claims of being able to "inherit" such changes I take with a huge grain of salt. They propose no mechanism for such a thing, and I can easily see how environmental issues could be the cause their findings that birth weights were affected by the life experiences of grandma.

Global Warming has more apparent validity that this.

[narby]

that this = than this

[blam]

"Things like skin color are likely the result of selective breeding; our ancestors picking mates based on their ideals of beauty. In other words, you look the way you do because your great-great-great-great- ... -great-great grandmother/grandfather thought that fill-in-the-blank looked sexy."

In Europe light skin became beautiful because the lighter skinned people were healthier than the darker skinned people because they got more sun and made more Vitamin D and had less incident of Vitamin D deficent disease like scurvvy, rickets and etc.

In Africa, Black became beautiful because the lighter skinned people there had skin sores (cancer) and died early, etc.

HEALTHY = Beautiful.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Maybe. If you want to see that.

Personally see racist-suggestive stuff coming out of your post 4.

(mildly erased from before racist-suggestive in the above sentence).

[dirtboy]

Claims of being able to "inherit" such changes I take with a huge grain of salt. They propose no mechanism for such a thing, and I can easily see how environmental issues could be the cause their findings that birth weights were affected by the life experiences of grandma.

I have my own theory. Organisms can imprint responses to critical life experiences on their genome and pass that to offspring. It explains how inherited behviors orginate better than pure Darwinian evolution.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

You might have a point for eye color, but not for skin tone. Eye color just seems pretty. Amount of melanin is useful.

Those in northern climes tend to have lighter skin--this helps them produce enough vitamin D from the limited amount of sunlight they are exposed to (especially considering they also have to put on more clothes as it is colder).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

And maybe you picked up your opinion from the Klan or Aryan Nations?

[blam]

A graph detailing the origin of modern humans using the Polygenism theory of human evolution.

Multiregional Hypothesis

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Hmmmm.....

Getting sort of angry after reading a bunch of race-based threads.

Time to bug out of here, anyway.

Will check back later. (for pings and such).