outlier
Posts: 1111
Joined: 10/22/2005 Status: offline
|
Thank you for this interesting article. I wonder, since the effect is concentrated in Asia, how much is attributable to the genes of Genghis Khan? http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/25/genghis-khan-descendants-lead_achieve07_cz_cz_0301khan.html http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/ From the Forbes Article: "Geneticists have also used genetic markers to learn more about the ancestry of people in particular parts of the world. Genghis Khan's genetic achievements turned up in a study in which an international team analyzed the DNA of 2,123 men from Asia. Why just men? Because, unlike other chromosomes, the Y chromosome carried by each man is usually a carbon copy of his father's. (Other chromosomes come in pairs, and they get scrambled before we inherit them from our parents.) In their survey of Asian men, the geneticists discovered one particularly remarkable genetic marker. It turned up in men in a vast region stretching from China across Mongolia and as far west as Uzbekistan. Eight percent of the men in that region carried it. Beyond those borders, they found the marker in just half a percent of Asian men. Closer study revealed that this marker probably originated in Mongolia roughly 1,000 years ago, plus or minus three centuries. All of these lines of evidence pointed the geneticists to a dramatic conclusion: the men who carry this particular marker are all descended from Genghis Khan."
< Message edited by outlier -- 2/16/2013 9:51:42 AM >
_____________________________
Avatar from xkcd.com "A happy sex life may take years to achieve, but it’s worth it in the long run. Worth the time, the thought - or rather, the thoughtfulness - and, often, the waiting." Pete Seeger
|