Read reviews of science articles, new research and news reports on ancestry testing, ancient DNA and popular genetics
Anomalous Native American Lineages Now Identified Also among Micmac Indians After posting “Anomalous Mitochondrial DNA Lineages in the Cherokee,” and after being interviewed on the subject by an Internet radio show host, I was contacted by participants in the Amerindian Ancestry out of Acadia Project who were struck by similarities in results for the two groups.
Icelandic genomics firm goes bankrupt
In a report by Erika Check Hayden, the journal Nature gloated that the innovative personal genomics company deCODE Genetics went out of business, leaving the disposition of valuable genetic data unclear.
Listen to a broadcast about “anomalous DNA” in the Cherokee by principal investigator Donald N. Yates on Blog Talk Radio from October 29. Host, Rick Ozman of the Oopa Loopa Cafe. Length: 2 hours.
When DNA Second-Guesses History… and Is Wrong
In a new article in the European Journal of Human Genetics (17/5:693), the enigmatic Etruscans of antiquity are again the subject of a DNA investigation.
Scary Findings in Guangxi Region
In a report published in the October 30 number of Science, Chinese paleoanthropologists claimed that the jawbone and teeth unearthed by them recently in the southern province of Guangxi represent a form of man 100,000 years old. Their interpretation of the fossil challenges the Western theory that claims our ancestors peopled the world in a migration out of Africa late in the last Ice Age, about 50,000 years ago. But there is more. American and European scientists stand to lose even more face if China’s insistence is true that this early human is a hybrid with H. erectus, a more primitive species also known as Peking Man.
Donald N. Yates
submitted August 31, 2009
ABSTRACT. A sample of 52 individuals who purchased mitochondrial DNA testing to determine their female lineage was assembled after the fact from the customer files of DNA Consultants. All claim matrilineal descent from a Native American woman, usually named as Cherokee.
In the last blog post, we responded to the call of Nature (the journal, that is) in “Genetics without Borders.” In this, we examine the second of three editorials in this week’s issue concerning regulation of DNA testing companies: “Putting DNA to the Test.”
That’s the import of a trio of opinions in this week’s Nature magazine. One of them, “Genetics without Borders,” criticizes a “UK government scheme to establish nationality through DNA testing [as] scientifically flawed, ethically dubious and potentially damaging to science.”
Local Hunter-Gatherers Obstruct Incoming Farmers, Again
In the last post, we saw that there was discontinuity in the genetic record between medieval and contemporary Tuscans. Contradictions keep popping up whenever geneticists seek to show continuity in human populations.
