Natural selection has strongly influenced recent human evolution, Cornell/Celera Genomics study finds
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct05/Bustamante.kr.html
Oct. 19, 2005
By Krishna Ramanujan
ksr32@cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The most detailed analysis to date of how humans differ from one another at the DNA level shows strong evidence that natural selection has shaped the recent evolution of our species, according to researchers from Cornell University, Celera Genomics and Celera Diagnostics.
In a study published in the Oct. 20 issue of the journal Nature, Cornell scientists analyzed 11,624 genes, comparing how genes vary not only among 39 humans but also between the humans and a chimpanzee, whose DNA is 99 percent identical to humans.
The comparisons within and between species suggest that about 9 percent of genes that show some variability within humans or differences between humans and chimpanzees have evolved too rapidly to be explained simply by chance. The study suggests that positive Darwinian natural selection -- in which some forms of a gene are favored because they increase the probability of survival or reproduction -- is responsible for the increased rate of evolution. Since genes are blueprints for proteins, positive selection causes changes in the amino acid sequence of the protein for which the gene codes.
"Our study suggests that natural selection has played an important role in patterning the human genome," said the paper's lead author, Carlos Bustamante, assistant professor of biological statistics and computational biology at Cornell.
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Looking for the reasons for our current behavior
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- Is the Party coming to an end?
- re: When the lights will go out
- Sounds like the predictions from the Club of Rome back in 1972
- Undoubtedly