Dare To Look At Your Gene Pool?

[Curiosity]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4226971.html

Sept. 30, 2006, 7:03PM
Who knew I'd be so ethnic? Where my roots led me

By ASHLEY HERZOG Houseton Chronicle

The idea of taking a DNA test first came to me in August, after I read a Time magazine article entitled "Diving into the Gene Pool." The author, Carolina A. Miranda describes herself as an "olive-skinned Latina," but a DNA analysis test uncovered connections to places likesuch as Poland and Mozambique. Intrigued, I decided to order my own analysis kit from DNA Tribes, a company that promised to trace my ancestry back to ancient times.
I didn't expect my experience to be anything like Miranda's. For starters, I was fairly certain of my ethnic heritage: Irish on my mother's side, German and Polish on my father's. This genetic profile was evident both in my family's cultural heritage and my appearance: I have the fair skin and blond hair that is typical of Northern Europeans. I assumed that my DNA analysis would show strong links to Northern Europe, with perhaps a smattering of other European blood on some distant branch of
try{OAS_AD('Middle');}catch(e){}

the family tree. But like Miranda, I was in for a surprise.
The first part of the test identified "deep ancestral roots," listing the top 20 places in the world that my ancestors likely came from. I was shocked to see that my strongest genetic roots were in Spain, followed closely by the Himalayan region of India. Other top matches included Turkey, Norway, Romania and Saudi Arabia — places I'd never dreamed of identifying with. And I apparently should not waste time searching for long-lost relatives at Oktoberfest parties this year: Germany graced the bottom of the list, barely beating Northern Italy as a contributor to my genetic profile.
The second part of the test listed 20 places in the modern world where my genetic relatives are likely to be found today. Because of our shared Spanish origins, I have strong ties to the people of present-day Mexico, Costa Rica and Argentina. And while the test suggested that many of my relatives — such as the Swiss and Norwegians — look like me, others bear no resemblance. Outside of the Hispanic world, my closest relatives can be found in northeast India.
My family was just as baffled as I was by the results. There are plenty of possibilities: For example, my mother's ancestors might have been "Black Celts," or Irish citizens of Spanish descent. But there are few clear answers. Without extensive genealogical research or possibly a time machine, most of my genetic connections will remain mysteries.
Although the DNA test couldn't explain how people from across the world came together to create me, a white Christian girl living in the American Midwest, it did prove many of my assumptions false. I took the test thinking that my ancestors farmed potatoes in Ireland and fought in Charlemagne's noble army, and some of them did. But others bowed to Mecca and weathered harsh winters in the Himalayan foothills. Without a DNA test, I never would have known it.
I'm not alone in my ignorance. Geneticists claim that many Americans' genetic profiles are as diverse as mine, and few precisely reflect the cultural identities we embrace.
If this is true, it raises some interesting questions.
First, what do terms likesuch as "race" and "ethnicity" really mean? Do they describe a person's actual genetic makeup, or do they relate more to social affiliations with a particular group? Since I have genetic links to several populations that are considered nonwhite, should I start checking the "multiracial" box on government surveys and job applications? These questions are difficult ones, and every answer is highly debatable.
In any case, DNA tests have proved one thing: People of different ethnic identities often have more in common than they think.
Discovering your true ancestral origins can be confusing and even painful. But it can also be the first step toward greater appreciation for people around the globe.
Herzog is a journalism student at Ohio University in Athens and a graduate of The Woodlands High School.

 

[missile]

I have always guessed that if I went back far enough,I'd have a lot of African heritage..civilization began in the Tigris River region,after all. Basically, everyone on Earth comes from the same basic genepool.I'd love to see some bigots find this out

 

[Curiosity]

Missile

Excellent point.

On a forum one time a man who had studied (or taught) phenomes and genomes came on board and gave us such a wealth of information I am sorry I didn't spent more time copying all that he wrote and the links
he gave us .... but the forum went down before I had a chance.

We are all as one - which makes racism pretty dang dumb! Especially since exposure to the sun and climate has determined much of "our ancestry"....

 

[WilliamAshley]

There could be error, or dna mutation, to get good results your whole family should do it, and see if you get the same results. a scientificfact is just that, not necisarily the truth, it is a geuss based upon systematic theories.

Although I think being more worldly and less culture centrict may be a good go.

However mohammed came about around 500AD so 1000 year migration from the islamic world to france is pretty hefty. especially during that period. however muslim spain was cordiba?? was bigger than constinople... or a rival. That may be a good idea of how you got from saudi to spain..spain to iere isn't so much of a jump..however..I wouldn't know.

personally it is interesting..if you could do it with a hair sample instead of a blood sample and it wasn't highly expensive having your own dna mapped might be interesting.

 

[Kreskin]

If you're having trouble finding your roots, they say, become a politician. The opposition will have it mapped in no time.

Perhaps the dna mapping discussed here isn't an issue but delving into chromosomes can be somewhat of a risk. I had to have karyotyping performed for a medical situation. Basically an analysis of a number of chromosomes looking for translocations etc. I remember the geneticist talking about insurance issues. If you discover something out of the ordinary you might need to disclose it on life insurance applications. If it isn't and the insurance company finds out after you kick the bucket they could decline your family claim.

Food for thought.

 

[MattUK]

I dont think that we do all come from the same "gene" place. I think that there are "different" types of humans. I think that the human evolved from other things, but I think that there are more refined types of people. We are each a part of a different form of early human.

Like any other animal, it evolves to suit its surroundings. Just becuase one Dolphin looks a certain way, does not mean that every dolphin will look like it or be able to do the same things as it. BUT they are still both dolphins.

Other things include Aboriginals in Australia. They have been there for about 70,000 years. Oz has been an Island for millions of years. So, either they invented a boat thousands of years before any other human, sailed for a blinking long time and then never took to the sea again, or they have evolved there, or they have been there since the day Oz becoame an island millions of years ago.

I dont think that we all come from Mesopotamia at all. I dont think "all" life started around the Tigis and Euphrates.

 

[fuzzylogix]

I did this and found out I am more Basque and Iberian than the British heritage I thought I had. It is interesting to see your blip put on the map.

 

[EastSideScotian]

I dont think that we do all come from the same "gene" place. I think that there are "different" types of humans. I think that the human evolved from other things, but I think that there are more refined types of people. We are each a part of a different form of early human.

Like any other animal, it evolves to suit its surroundings. Just becuase one Dolphin looks a certain way, does not mean that every dolphin will look like it or be able to do the same things as it. BUT they are still both dolphins.

Other things include Aboriginals in Australia. They have been there for about 70,000 years. Oz has been an Island for millions of years. So, either they invented a boat thousands of years before any other human, sailed for a blinking long time and then never took to the sea again, or they have evolved there, or they have been there since the day Oz becoame an island millions of years ago.

I dont think that we all come from Mesopotamia at all. I dont think "all" life started around the Tigis and Euphrates.

..........................................
We did, then we spread across the earth, its not a theroy its a fact...but good try.

Their are not Differant types of Humans, its been proven through DNA that we all have the same denetic patterans all with differant twists from fore fathers.....Humans are all that same just differant looking....Its not really anything to hard to get your head around.

 

[MattUK]

Okay EastSide. You are not quite right. Go back over history (a long time ago history, before your forefathers and before the Declaration of Independance etc) and there were different types of humans at different times, such as;

Homo Habilis
Homo Erectus
Homo Sapiens Archaic
Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis
Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us lot).

Now, here is my argument based on the science available (and some scientists think this BTW, I just dont know how many);

There is no known reason for any of the other species of humans to have died out "just like that". Only speculation. It is my belief that there were different types of humans that we were coming together and breeding, thus slightly changing the type of human. Through persistant cross breeding of the different species of human, the initial species all "died" out, well, they didn't "die out", they eveolved through cross breeding, we are the result of 4-5 million years of cross breeding. Why are all humans so different, but not so different we cant clasify them? Some have larger, more neandertal like skulls, and a big bone structure and well built, wheras others have a more "modern" skull shape and lighter frames?

Of course, all DNA's have refined over the years showing that we have similar DNA because our DNA is all a mix of the previous species such as Homo Habilis. But, there will not be any "pure" Homo Habilis to verify this with.

Until we can say how each of the above mentioned died out, yet we "miraculously" survived, I think that nothing can disprove this theory. Also, nothing can prove it. Its not my theory either, its one that I accept after reading what scientists say.

The "hobbits" found last year are a prime example that there may have been other species.

 

[EastSideScotian]

Homo Habilis
Homo Erectus
Homo Sapiens Archaic
Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis
Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us lot).

All the same species....just differant names durning the Evolution timeline....

Now Homo Sapiens Sapiens, are us, Or Cromagnum. Cromagnums, evolved from Neaderthals, some way, they looked alot differant, Cromagnums (us) ended up out living Neaderthals, ethier we killed them all or, they died out, at somepoint. But they were they same species, they just lived together for awhile, one was just the more Evolved cusin.

As for these hobits, little is known about them, but the theroy is that htye were dawrfed neaderthal, somewhere inbetween Homo Sapiens Archaic and Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis durning the evolvment.

Now I myself dont care ethier way what they were, but youll notice they carry the same charicteristics as humans, as do all of the preastoric, aged humans, some of them evolved at differant points while manageing to live with their less evolved cusins, before the less evolved died out...thats the theroy behind their being differant types of humans, and its the most common.

 

[MattUK]

But its a theory thats disputed a lot. There are a lot of holes in it that are very easy to jump through. The main one being that evolution just does not happen that fast. For Neandertals to live along side us for a while must have meant that we evolved quickly - but evolved from what? If we evolved from neandertals, then it should have been a fairly smooth transition between them and us, not us springing up and living next to them! And then why did they die just like that? The had been around for a good few hundred thousand years, had learned how to hunt etc, why did it all change? I dont think the appearance of us is the reason either.

 

[EastSideScotian]

We hunted and killed them, we had communities, and other systems, we made better weapons. Brains over Brons

 

[MattUK]

But what did we evolve from - and how did we do it so damned quickly?

 

[Curiosity]

EastSideScotian

Thanks for all those complicated and wonderful sounding names.... sure beats "white cracker" !!!

 

[Sassylassie]

LOL Curio, or a mutt like Moi.

 

[humanbeing]

Race in humans does not exist.. except in the imagination.

More stuff related to this thread:

The Neanderthal's Tale, written by Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong, taken from Dawkins' book The Ancestor's Tale.

Are we descended from Neanderthals? If so, they would have to have interbred with Homo sapiens sapiens. But did they? They overlapped for a long time in Europe, and there was surely contact between them. But did it go beyond contact? Do modern Europeans inherit any Neanderthal genes? This is a hotly debated issue, recently reignited by a remarkable extraction of DNA from late Neanderthal bones. So far, we have extracted only the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, but this is enough for a tentative verdict. Neanderthal mitochondria are quite distinct from those of all surviving humans, suggesting that Neanderthals are no closer to Europeans than to any other modern peoples. In other words, the female-line common ancestor of Neanderthals and all surviving humans long pre-dates Mitochondrial Eve: about 500,000 years as opposed to 140,000. This genetic evidence suggests that successful interbreeding between Neanderthals and Moderns was rare. And so it is often said that they died out without leaving any descendants.
But don't let's forget that '80 per cent' argument which so surprised us in the Tasmanian's Tale. A single immigrant who managed to break into the Tasmanian breeding population had an 80 per cent chance of joining the set of universal ancestors: the set of individuals who could call themselves ancestors of all surviving Tasmanians in the distant future. By the same token, if only one Neaderthal male, say, bred into a sapiens population, that gave him a reasonable chance of being a common ancestor to all Europeans alive today. This can be true even if Europeans contain no Neanderthal genes at all. A striking thought.
So although few, if any, of our genes come from Neanderthals, it is possible that some people have many Neanderthal ancestors. This was the distinction we met in Eve's Tale between gene trees and people trees. Evolution is governed by the flow of genes, and the moral of the Neanderthal's Tale, if we follow him to tell it, is that we cannot, should not, look at evolution in terms of pedigrees of individuals. Of course, individuals are important in all sorts of other ways, but if we are talking pedigrees it is gene trees that count. The words 'evolutionary descent' refer to gene ancestors, not genealogical ancestors.
Fossil changes too are a reflection of gene pedigrees, not (or only incidentally) genealogical pedigrees. Fossils indicate that Modern anatomy passed to the rest of the world via young out-of-Africa migrations. But Alan Templeton's work suggests that we are also partly 'descended from' non-African Archaics, possible even non-African Homo erectus. The description is both simpler and more powerful if we swtich from people talk to gene talk. The genes that determine our Modern anatomy were carried out of Africa by the YOOA migrants,leaving fossils in their wake. At the same time, Templeton's evidence suggests that other genes we now possess were flowing around the world by different routes, but left little anatomical evidence to show for it. Most of our genes probably took the young out-of-Africa route, while just a few came to us through other routes. What could be a more powerful way to express it?
So, have the Neanderthals established their right to tell a tale? Maybe a tale of genealogy if not a tale of genes.

So there you have it, we MIGHT have Neanderthals among our descendants, but we did not evolve from Archaics to Neanderthals to Moderns. At least, that idea is not supported by anything we currently know.

 

[MattUK]

Might is good enough to show that we could be wrong. Humans tend to stick to one thing until its proven wrong.

We all believed that the Big Bang theory was right even though there were loopholes, and even though it totally fails to say what banged, why it banged, where is banged and what caused it to bang. People like Alan Guth, Seteve Weinberg, Brian Greene and Mario Livio have long since proved that our understanding was slightly misled.

In the future, you never know what will happen. Generally in scienece, its the ones who forget what we already know, and think of new things "outside the box" that change theorys.

 

[humanbeing]

Might is good enough to show that we could be wrong. Humans tend to stick to one thing until its proven wrong.

Well I've not completely ruled out the possibility that Mr. Neanderthal may have gotten together with Mrs. Sapiens, and done some good old fashion interbreeding... But from the data that we do have, we've ruled out a lot of other things. We know we didn't evolve as modern humans from neanderthals. Our ancestors (which were sapiens) arrived in Europe at a later date than the Neanderthal's ancestors (which were not sapiens). We know that neanderthal mitochondrial DNA does not match our mDNA... but hey! as of July this year, scientists are mapping the Neanderthal genome!! Something I would never have figured on even just a while ago. Good stuff is sure to come from that. These are such exciting times we are living though.

We all believed that the Big Bang theory was right even though there were loopholes, and even though it totally fails to say what banged, why it banged, where is banged and what caused it to bang. People like Alan Guth, Seteve Weinberg, Brian Greene and Mario Livio have long since proved that our understanding was slightly misled.

Well, for me, I never for once believed that the big bang theory was right on - especially with all the questions left running through my mind. I don't think many scientists would have thought it to be right either. I simply thought it's the best thing we had. So did they, I'd guess.

By the way, has the idea of a big bang been turned on its head or something? You sorta make it sound like it has. It still sounds reasonable enough at this point, for what it is.. even if there has been some changing and refining over time - which is exactly as I would hope.

In the future, you never know what will happen. Generally in scienece, its the ones who forget what we already know, and think of new things "outside the box" that change theorys.

"Outside the box" thinking should often be encouraged. And in many times and places, it is - perhaps not enough, or not appropriately, mind you. I do know that many graduate level students are questioning things their professors upheld, and they seem to put out the most, and the best new ideas in their fields. People ought not attempt to stop whatever degree of "outside the box" thinking is going on there, partly because if they did, it would be ridiculously counterproductive.

btw, to eastsidescotian: both us and neanderthals are of the same genus, but not the same species... this was figured out when they checked the mDNA a while back.

 

[MikeyDB]

Curious...

I don't have genes, I come from a part of the universe where life emerged through crystal and our hereditary influences are referred to as Tiffany's.....

 

[humanbeing]

personally it is interesting..if you could do it with a hair sample instead of a blood sample and it wasn't highly expensive having your own dna mapped might be interesting.

Well, the cost and the time required for mapping DNA is getting lower and lower. I'd imagine at some point in the future, well within our lifetimes no doubt, we will be able to go and get it done at some business that offers the service for cheap.