brokenandtwisted
December 12th, 2007, 11:05 PM
Humans evolving faster, study says
10/12/2007 5:36:30 PM
Humans are evolving faster than ever before, which means people on different continents are becoming increasingly different, a new study says.
CBC News
Anthropology researchers at the University of Utah have found the pace of evolution has accelerated in the past 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
Human races are evolving away from each other and are very different from what they were 1,000 or 2,000 years ago, according to research leader Henry Harpending, a professor of anthropology at the university.
That explains, in part, the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants.
"The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence," Harpending said in a release.
The findings were published in Monday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers looked for genetic evidence of natural selection, or the evolution of favourable gene mutations, over the past 80,000 years by analyzing DNA from 270 individuals in the International HapMap Project, which is an initiative to identify variations in genes that cause disease.
They studied 3.9 million chromosome mutations from 270 people in four populations: Han Chinese, Japanese, Africa’s Yoruba tribe and northern Europeans, represented largely by data from Utah Mormons. Harpending and his team examined the speed at which chromosome mutations broke up and recombined and found that about seven per cent are undergoing rapid, recent evolution.
"Our study denies the widely held assumption or belief that modern humans appeared 40,000 years ago, have not changed since and that we are all pretty much the same," he said. "We show that humans are changing relatively rapidly on a scale of centuries to millennia, and that these changes are different in different continental groups."
The researchers noted that rapid population growth, along with big changes in culture and ecology, have resulted in major genetic changes, such as skeletal and dental changes. Human migration into new environments has also led to adaptations to colder weather, such as less skin pigmentation to allow for more vitamin D absorption.
http://technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/Humans+evolving+faster+study+says/NewsandOpinions/ContentPosting.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=science-evolution&feedname=CBC-TECH-SCIENCE&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=False
I wish I could see into the future for I don't know...two minutes.
10/12/2007 5:36:30 PM
Humans are evolving faster than ever before, which means people on different continents are becoming increasingly different, a new study says.
CBC News
Anthropology researchers at the University of Utah have found the pace of evolution has accelerated in the past 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
Human races are evolving away from each other and are very different from what they were 1,000 or 2,000 years ago, according to research leader Henry Harpending, a professor of anthropology at the university.
That explains, in part, the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants.
"The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence," Harpending said in a release.
The findings were published in Monday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers looked for genetic evidence of natural selection, or the evolution of favourable gene mutations, over the past 80,000 years by analyzing DNA from 270 individuals in the International HapMap Project, which is an initiative to identify variations in genes that cause disease.
They studied 3.9 million chromosome mutations from 270 people in four populations: Han Chinese, Japanese, Africa’s Yoruba tribe and northern Europeans, represented largely by data from Utah Mormons. Harpending and his team examined the speed at which chromosome mutations broke up and recombined and found that about seven per cent are undergoing rapid, recent evolution.
"Our study denies the widely held assumption or belief that modern humans appeared 40,000 years ago, have not changed since and that we are all pretty much the same," he said. "We show that humans are changing relatively rapidly on a scale of centuries to millennia, and that these changes are different in different continental groups."
The researchers noted that rapid population growth, along with big changes in culture and ecology, have resulted in major genetic changes, such as skeletal and dental changes. Human migration into new environments has also led to adaptations to colder weather, such as less skin pigmentation to allow for more vitamin D absorption.
http://technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/Humans+evolving+faster+study+says/NewsandOpinions/ContentPosting.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=science-evolution&feedname=CBC-TECH-SCIENCE&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=False
I wish I could see into the future for I don't know...two minutes.