Ancient DNA

Gwilym of the Many Conquests and the Smooth-Talking Gene

Blaine Bettinger 2 Comments

[PLEASE NOTE:  The Onion is a satirical site meant for ENTERTAINMENT and social commentary purposes only.  The following study is NOT real!]

The Onion, an infamous mock news site has a (surprisingly intelligent) article today entitled “7 Million People Direct Descendants Of Single Smooth-Talking Ancestor” about a “study” that has found that millions of people around the world have a genetic marker that links them to “a single smooth-talking common ancestor.”

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings brings the article to my attention (thank you Randy!):

The headline screams “7 Million People Direct Descendants of Smooth-Talking Ancestor” — see the article here in the Science and Technology section of The Onion. It sounds right up the genetic genealogy alley, doesn’t it? Megan, Blaine, Emily – why haven’t you written about this guy? Are 7 million descendants not enough? ... Click to read more!

Family Tree DNA Discovers Y-DNA Signature That Might Represent the Prophet Mohammed

Blaine Bettinger 11 Comments

DNA An article in the United Arab Emirate newspaper The National (wikipedia) does a terrific job of highlighting recent research from Family Tree DNA.  The story – “DNA could illuminate Islam’s lineage” – discusses research that has attempted to elucidate the Y-DNA signature of Mohammed.  Although Mohammed did not have a son, he had a daughter who married her paternal second cousin, thus passing to Mohammed’s grandchildren the same Y-DNA.  From the article:

“For almost 1,600 years, the title Sharif, Sayyed, or Habib has been bestowed on Muslims who have been able to trace their roots back to the Prophet Mohammed through intricate family trees, oral histories and genealogical records. But now an American DNA lab says it may have identified the DNA signature of descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, and perhaps the prospect of a direct, more accurate means of confirming or identifying such a connection.” ... Click to read more!

The Close Cousins DNA Project – A Request for Help

Blaine Bettinger 2 Comments
Chimpanzee

Image by Aaron Logan

Roughly 6 million years ago, the Hominini subtribe of the Hominidae family tree (the so-called “great apes”) diverged into two known branches, with one branch (genus Pan ) resulting in modern-day Chimpanzees and Bonobos, and the other branch (genus Homo) resulting in modern-day humans.

Since there has only been 6 million years of divergent evolution, Chimpanzees/Bonobos and Humans share a great deal of DNA sequence in common (although estimates vary widely and typically depend on what, exactly, is being considered in the comparison).

The Close Cousins DNA Project

On May 31, 2008, the Close Cousins DNA Project was launched by Bill Davenport as a result of a discussion on the Genealogy-DNA mailing list regarding the relatedness of human and chimpanzee Y-DNA.  From the launching post: ... Click to read more!

Humans Entered the Americas in More Than One Wave

Blaine Bettinger 3 Comments

image An international team of researchers have concluded that humans entered the Americas from Asia along at least two different paths.  By studying two rare mtDNA haplogroups found in Native Americans – D4h3 and X2a – the researchers conclude that D4h3 spread into the Americans along the Pacific coast while X2a entered through the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.

From the Press Release:  “Six major genetic lineages account for 95 percent of Native American mtDNA and are distributed everywhere in the Americas,” said first author Ugo Perego, director of operations at SMGF. “So we chose to analyze two rare genetic groups and eliminate that ‘statistical background noise.’ In this way, we found patterns that correspond to two separate migration routes.” ... Click to read more!

Y-chromosomal evidence of the cultural diffusion of agriculture in southeast Europe

Blaine Bettinger 5 Comments
Wheat farm

Image via Wikipedia

I received the following press release today from SMGF:

SALT LAKE CITY (Dec. 30, 2008)—Genetic research by the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF) and scientists from ten organizations in Europe and the U.S. shows human groups with the deepest roots in southeastern Europe were not pushed out by an incoming wave of farmer-colonists as agriculture first spread into Europe. Instead, indigenous Europeans with a hunting and gathering lifestyle adopted agriculture when it was introduced by settlers from the Middle East. The study was published in the Dec. 24, 2008 online issue of European Journal of Human Genetics.

Scientists have long debated the question of how agriculture spread into Europe from its birthplace in the Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East. But the evidence—primarily archaeological—is inconclusive. ... Click to read more!

A Lecture by Spencer Wells

Blaine Bettinger 6 Comments

image Last week I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project from National Geographic and IBM.

The talk was a Syracuse Symposium event, and the first big event ever to be held in Syracuse University’s new $110 million Life Sciences Center.  I thought it was fitting that the first event to celebrate the future of the new life sciences building was a lecture that examined the collective genetic journey of mankind.

Dr. Wells began by giving the audience a very brief introduction about DNA and genetic genealogy.  He included a great quote that “The question of origin is actually a question about genealogy.”  For those that are not familiar with the Genographic Project, it was launched in 2005 and includes three primary missions: ... Click to read more!

The Full mtDNA Genome of Ötzi is Sequenced (Twice?)

Blaine Bettinger 3 Comments
Großglockner seen from the southwest. The Groß...

Image via Wikipedia

Ötzi the Iceman is the popular name for a 5,000 year-old mummy discovered frozen in the ice of the Alps in 1991.  Studies of the Iceman has revealed an immense amount of information about him, including details of his life, his death, and his culture. 

Although Ötzi’s mtDNA has previously been studied, researchers had only examined short segments which suggested that his mtDNA belonged to Haplogroup K.  A new paper in Current Biology (subscription only darn it) details Ötzi’s full mtDNA genome for the first time:

"Using a mixed sequencing procedure based on PCR amplification and 454 sequencing of pooled amplification products, we have retrieved the first complete mitochondrial-genome sequence of a prehistoric European. We have then compared it with 115 related extant lineages from mitochondrial haplogroup K. We found that the Iceman belonged to a branch of mitochondrial haplogroup K1 that has not yet been identified in modern European populations." ... Click to read more!

Ancestral GPS – Pinpointing the Geographic Origin of Autosomal DNA Sequences

Blaine Bettinger 6 Comments

image I’ve been meaning to write about recent two papers, one in Current Biology and one in Nature, that attempt to identify and characterize a relationship between genetic sequence or SNP and geography.  Amazingly, both papers found a very strong correlation between genetics and geography.

From a news article regarding the paper in Nature (note that I haven’t verified that the paper supports the statement; HT: Yann Klimentidis’ Weblog):

"The map was so accurate that when Novembre’s team placed a geopolitical map over their genetic "map", half of the genomes landed within 310 kilometres of their country of origin, while 90% fell within 700 km."

Although there are some caveats, for example in one of the papers all of an individual’s grandparents had to have similar geographic origins in order for the method to identify ancestry, these types of studies will continue to discover and refine the methods and findings.  As Kambiz stated at Anthropology.net, "With higher resolution GeneChips, ideally full genomes, and larger samples, we’ll be able see much more accurate genetic-geographic separations of populations." ... Click to read more!

The Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee Rejects DNA Testing

Blaine Bettinger 7 Comments

iStock_000002679865XSmallSee the new article at Seed Magazine “Inheriting Confucius,” which discusses efforts to generate a family tree containing the 2 million+ descendants of Confucius.

Kong De-Yong, a 77th(!) generation descendant of Confucius, has been compiling the tree for the last 10 years.  Although the Committee is accepting submissions from women and other previously excluded groups, it is not accepting DNA contributions.  According to the article, this “hints at the limits of Chinese engagement with the age of genomics, and demonstrates how high cultural stakes can constrain science.”  Unfortunately, as the author of the article suggests, many people might be afraid of the results of such DNA testing: “Given the potential implications of genetic knowledge for long-presumed members of the [Confucius] family, they think it better not to know.” ... Click to read more!

Complete Neanderthal Genome Sequenced – Differs from CRS at 133 Positions

Blaine Bettinger 5 Comments

iStock_000003743546XSmall GenomeWeb Daily News published a story on Friday entitled “En route to Neandertal Genome, Researchers Analyze Its Complete Mitochondrial Genome” which revealed the results of recent Neanderthal mtDNA analysis.

On Thursday May 9th, Svante Pääbo spoke at the Biology of Genomes meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Pääbo’s group, along with 454 Life Sciences, is currently engaged in a project to sequence the Neanderthal genome. The researchers have been able to sequence the complete Neanderthal mtDNA genome with 35-fold coverage. The genome is approximately 16 kilobases long and differs from the CRS at 133 positions. From what I’ve been able to find online, it doesn’t appear that the actual sequencing results have been released to the public. Given current estimates of mtDNA mutation rates, the number of differences between human and Neanderthal mtDNA suggests that the branches diverged approximately 600,000 years ago. ... Click to read more!