Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,819 Year: 3,076/9,624 Month: 921/1,588 Week: 104/223 Day: 2/13 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Rapid acceleration in human evolution described
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 2 (440279)
12-12-2007 12:58 PM


Rapid acceleration in human evolution described | Reuters
In the News, please.
quote:
Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought, researchers said on Monday.
quote:
The researchers looked for the appearance of favorable gene mutations over the past 80,000 years of human history by analyzing voluminous DNA information on 270 people from different populations worldwide.
Data from this International HapMap Project, short for haplotype mapping, offered essentially a catalogue of genetic differences and similarities in people alive today.
Looking at such data, scientists can ascertain how recently a given genetic change appeared in the genome and then can plot the pace of such change into the distant past.
Beneficial genetic changes have appeared at a rate roughly 100 times higher in the past 5,000 years than at any previous period of human evolution, the researchers determined. They added that about 7 percent of human genes are undergoing rapid, relatively recent evolution.
There's a lot that can be discussed there.
I'd like to have this to be linked to from other threads.
Lots of applicable quotes for this site.
quote:
For example, Africans have new genes providing resistance to malaria. In Europeans, there is a gene that makes them better able to digest milk as adults. In Asians, there is a gene that makes ear wax more dry.
So much for mutation not being able to add information or be beneficial.
quote:
Genes have evolved relatively quickly in Africa, Asia and Europe but almost all of the changes have been unique to their corner of the world. This is the case, he said, because since humans dispersed from Africa to other parts of the world about 40,000 years ago, there has not been much flow of genes between the regions.
People have argued that the world is 'one population' and that there is a lot of gene flow between the regions. Maybe not.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by AdminWounded, posted 12-12-2007 1:05 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

AdminWounded
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 2 (440284)
12-12-2007 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by New Cat's Eye
12-12-2007 12:58 PM


too slow
You don't need to PNT things for 'in the news', and by doing so you have been pipped at the post by a previous poster, GRD in Is Human Evolution Speeding Up . Maybe you could cut and past your discussion of the reuters report in addition to the one by the BBC on that thread.
TTFN,
AW
Edited by AdminWounded, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-12-2007 12:58 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024