Articles and Interesting Links

[casadecoqui]

National Geographic News:

New article in the next issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

Climate Change May Have Spurred Early Human Migration, Study Says

Rapid climate change may have enabled early humans to venture out of Africa and colonize the rest of the world, according to a new study.

[Sasa]

The Global Africa Presence by Runoko Rashidi

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html

Sasa Sullivan
Co-Administrator FTDNA African DNA Project

HaplogroupL2

HVR1 differences From CRS16223T 16278T 16294T 16309G 16368C 16390A 16519C

HVR2 differences From CRS 073G 146C 152C 195C 263G 309.1C 315.1C

[Sasa]

A wealth of information about the many nations of Africa.

"We have about 410 African Tribes
listed here. Use the green arrows to
navigate up or down and then click
the dark tribe name to see information."

http://www.gateway-africa.com/tribe/

Sasa Sullivan
Co-Administrator FTDNA African DNA Project

HaplogroupL2

HVR1 differences From CRS16223T 16278T 16294T 16309G 16368C 16390A 16519C

HVR2 differences From CRS 073G 146C 152C 195C 263G 309.1C 315.1C

[GregKiroKH]

I enjoyed this article. Now, I can review my notes to think about applications and theories.

In populations of eukaryotic organisms, transmission of the nuclear genome between generations is often sexual, with genotypic diversity arising from mutation and recombination. In contrast, transmission of mtDNA in the majority of eukaryotes is clonal (1), with genotypic diversity arising from mutation alone. However, in considering mitochondrial genome evolution (1), there are two reasons why strict clonality need not be the rule. First, the molecular machinery required for mtDNA recombination is widespread. Homologous DNA recombination activity has been detected in human mitochondria (2), and intermolecular mtDNA recombination has been documented in plants (3) and animals (4); this recombination, however, is between mtDNA sequences sharing the same history of descent.
1. Birky, C. W. (1995) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92, 11331-11338 [Abstract].
2. 2. Thyagarajan, B., Padua, R. A. & Campbell, C. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 27536-27543 [Abstract/Free Full Text].
3. 3. Lonsdale, D. M., Brears, T., Hodge, T. P., Melville, S. E. & Rottmann, W. H. (1988) Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. B 319, 149-164 [ISI].
4. 4. Lunt, D. H. & Hyman, B. C. (1997) Nature (London) 387, 247 [CrossRef][ISI][Medline] (lett.).

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/3/1331

[casadecoqui]

New article on African Haplogroup Dispersions

New article, not available without a subscription at PNAS but here's the abstract:

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0510792103

Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 years ago? A new model

Paul Mellars

Recent research has provided increasing support for the origins of anatomically and genetically "modern" human populations in Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, followed by a major dispersal of these populations to both Asia and Europe sometime after ca. 65,000 before present (B.P.). However, the central question of why it took these populations {approx}100,000 years to disperse from Africa to other regions of the world has never been clearly resolved. It is suggested here that the answer may lie partly in the results of recent DNA studies of present-day African populations, combined with a spate of new archaeological discoveries in Africa. Studies of both the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mismatch patterns in modern African populations and related mtDNA lineage-analysis patterns point to a major demographic expansion centered broadly within the time range from 80,000 to 60,000 B.P., probably deriving from a small geographical region of Africa. Recent archaeological discoveries in southern and eastern Africa suggest that, at approximately the same time, there was a major increase in the complexity of the technological, economic, social, and cognitive behavior of certain African groups, which could have led to a major demographic expansion of these groups in competition with other, adjacent groups. It is suggested that this complex of behavioral changes (possibly triggered by the rapid environmental changes around the transition from oxygen isotope stage 5 to stage 4) could have led not only to the expansion of the L2 and L3 mitochondrial lineages over the whole of Africa but also to the ensuing dispersal of these modern populations over most regions of Asia, Australasia, and Europe, and their replacement (with or without interbreeding) of the preceding "archaic" populations in these regions.

(Dispersion map of haplogroups attached).

[casadecoqui]

University of South Florida Africana Project

Researcher Audrey Poole's NC, SC, VA Archives

Wills, names, locations, transcriptions of documents, migration information and lots more.

[GregKiroKH]

This graph shows percentage of your haplogroup in America and in Africa. For example, L1c is about 1/8 of the total in America that is 12.5%.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v74n3/40631/fg1.h.jpg

[Sasa]

University of South Florida Africana Project

Researcher Audrey Poole's NC, SC, VA Archives

Wills, names, locations, transcriptions of documents, migration information and lots more.

Hmmm, my greatgrandmother's sister married a Poole in Perry County Alabama. This may have opened an new avenue for me to research.

Sasa Sullivan

[Sasa]

UCSB online 3D gallery of modern primate relatives and fossil ancestors of humans.

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/#

Welcome to the UCSB online 3D gallery of modern primate relatives and fossil ancestors of humans. This gallery contains five modern primate crania, and five fossil crania. The crania can be rotated 360 degrees. Each cranium is accompanied by a short description of its relevance to human evolution, and a site map.
You will need the Shockwave plugin from Macromedia to view this gallery (most browsers have this installed already). If necessary, you can obtain this plugin here.


Sasa Sullivan

[casadecoqui]

Trends Genet. 2006 Jun;22(6):339-45.
Harvesting the fruit of the human mtDNA tree.
Torroni A, Achilli A, Macaulay V, Richards M, Bandelt HJ.
Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Universita di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, Italy.

Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies have entered a new phase since the blossoming of complete genome analyses. Sequencing complete mtDNAs is more expensive and more labour intensive than restriction analysis or simply sequencing the control region of the molecule. But the efforts are
paying off, as the phylogenetic resolution of the mtDNA tree has been greatly improved, and, in turn, phylogeographic interpretations can be given correspondingly greater precision in terms of the timing and direction of human dispersals. Therefore, despite mtDNA being only a fraction of our total genome, the deciphering of its evolution is profoundly changing our perception about how modern humans spread across our planet. Here we illustrate the phylogeographic approach with two case studies: the initial dispersal out of Africa, and the colonization of Europe.
********************************

Get this! One individual's HVR1 has TWENTY FOUR MUTATIONS... a new record!

Harvesting the fruit of the human mtDNA tree

If anyone has library privileges and can get this article I would be your cousin forever .... well, we probably are anyway!

[lee1906]

Trends Genet. 2006 Jun;22(6):339-45.
Harvesting the fruit of the human mtDNA tree.
Torroni A, Achilli A, Macaulay V, Richards M, Bandelt HJ.
Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Universita di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, Italy.

Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies have entered a new phase since the blossoming of complete genome analyses. Sequencing complete mtDNAs is more expensive and more labour intensive than restriction analysis or simply sequencing the control region of the molecule. But the efforts are
paying off, as the phylogenetic resolution of the mtDNA tree has been greatly improved, and, in turn, phylogeographic interpretations can be given correspondingly greater precision in terms of the timing and direction of human dispersals. Therefore, despite mtDNA being only a fraction of our total genome, the deciphering of its evolution is profoundly changing our perception about how modern humans spread across our planet. Here we illustrate the phylogeographic approach with two case studies: the initial dispersal out of Africa, and the colonization of Europe.
********************************

Get this! One individual's HVR1 has TWENTY FOUR MUTATIONS... a new record!

Harvesting the fruit of the human mtDNA tree

If anyone has library privileges and can get this article I would be your cousin forever .... well, we probably are anyway!

Dr. Ana,

I can send you a pdf copy of this article. Just send me an email.

Hoyte

[casadecoqui]

Thanks, "cuz"!

Dr. Ana,

I can send you a pdf copy of this article. Just send me an email.

Hoyte

[GregKiroKH]

Dr. Ana,

I can send you a pdf copy of this article. Just send me an email.

Hoyte

I found a link to the article at Vincent Macaulay's website. He also has links to some of his recent research papers.

[casadecoqui]

Thanks, Greg.

For those that don't know of Dr. Vincent Macaulay's work, here is his URL:

Vincent Macaulay's Home page

I found a link to the article at Vincent Macaulay's website. He also has links to some of his recent research papers.

[casadecoqui]

News Article

News Article on Yahoo - soon to be published in Nature Magazine

Roots of Human Family Tree are shallow