DNA to trace journey of human race. "We're gonna nail down the details of that story"

krsna · April 13, 2005

Los Angeles Times

The National Geographic Society launches a massive project today to trace the migratory history of humans.

The five-year effort will involve the collection and analysis of DNA from more than 100,000 people worldwide.

“We already have a general view of the very early Paleolithic migrations,” said geneticist Spencer Wells, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence who will lead the project. “Humans spread out of Africa, then moved out of Eurasia, but it gets very hazy after that. We're going to nail down the details of that story.”

The Genographic Project is seeking individuals to participate in the project. They can have their DNA analyzed by purchasing a $99 kit that allows them to send in a DNA swab for analysis. Kits may be ordered at www.nationalgeographic.com.

The researchers initially will concentrate on indigenous peoples, such as the Hadzabe Tribe of Tanzania, ethnic Mongolians, and Navajo Indians in the United States. All have remained in one location for long periods and thus have a simpler genetic history.

Researchers initially will analyze DNA from mitochondria, the cellular powerhouses that are passed down through mothers, and the Y chromosome, passed by fathers.

Researchers already know through several studies that all humans today received their mitochondrial DNA from one woman, or perhaps a few, living in Africa about 200,000 years ago. They call this ancestor “mitochondrial Eve.”

Similarly, researchers have traced the Y chromosome of males back to a “genetic Adam” in roughly the same time and place.

Those studies are based on genetic data from only about 10,000 people, Wells said. The Genographic Project will have at least 10 times that many participants, allowing much greater detail to be teased out, particularly about the last 10,000 to 15,000 years.

April 14, 2005

DNA stands for "Do Not Alter" and will be insufficient to determine anything, since genes are not deterministic, as the scientists believe, but work through feedback loops. Every cell of the organism has the same strand of chromosomes, with identical DNA, which develops the cells according to their environment. Thus, a skin cell will develop as such, because its environment demands skin cells. Similarly, the liver develops from the information derived from the environment, just as all the other cells.

In the Darwinian paradigm, they will discover that the DNA of all their so-called 'ancestors' is different, for they are dealing with different species from the human. Just like the chimp has 95% of its DNA identical with man, they will discover similarities like that in those so-called ancestors. Of course this does not constitute proof of a common ancestor, but it does show that humans and apes have always lived together on the surface of the earth.

We shall not be lured into believing evrything these rascals say, for their 'science'is not even real science, but merely the gathering, systematising and ordering of some data.

VdK.

theist · April 14, 2005

I want to see them explain the 223 added genes that humans have that no evolutionary predecessers have so could not have passed on to humans.

Interplanetary/dimensional geneticists at work? Humans as a hybrid species? I think so.

Kulapavana · April 14, 2005

DNA studies like that are highly speculative and remind me a little of nazi studies of racial purity and it's anatomic expression.

as to these 223 added genes: a lot of them come from bacteria and virus infections. our DNA makeup is not at all static. our bodies were made to be very resilient and self-adjusting. Bodily "evolution" is actually there, but in a very narrow sense of constant adjustment to conditions.

April 18, 2005

Who added them?

If I understand the Vedic paradigm right, all animals devolved out of humans, with less genes each time. that accounts for us having more than the rest.

VdK>