World History
Ralph E. Schmid at Time has an article titled Human Evolution Speeding Up? In it he wrote, "People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say."
Researchers have been discovering the genes and evolution do not always work as we thought we understood them. Evolution can happen quickly. It does not always take thousands of years.
I recently read Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem. In the book, he wrote about jumping genes and retroviruses. Moalem noted, "The capacity of African primates to support the persistent of other viruses may have put our evolution on fast forward by allowing more rapid mutation through exposure to more retroviruses. It's possible that this capacity helped spur our evolution into humans" (p. 153).
Further, Epigenetics is showing that genes can be modified in a generation to deal with issues such as famine. If the gene markers are not turned off after a few generations, the genes can be modified. The Scientist has an article on this titled Epigenetics: Genome, Meet Your Environment.
The article in Time does not deal with all of this but it is interesting. It postulates that evolution is occurring more frequently now due to a larger human population and the fact that humans live in more diverse environments. Schmid wrote, "Harpending and colleagues looked at the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees, our closest relatives, they report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found. That indicates that human evolution had been slower in the distant past."
- Looking At 4,000 Year Old Dna From Greenland
There is an interesting find at of Greenland. The DNA of a 4,000 year old man was sequenced and some surprises were discovered. An article titled After 4,000 years, DNA suggests ancient Greenland man had risk of baldness and even dry earwax was written...
- When Were Horses Tamed?
The BBC has a new article up titled Horses tamed earlier than thought. It begins with, "Horses were domesticated much earlier than previously thought, according to a team of researchers. They found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by a culture...
- 3,000 Year Old Hebrew Text
An archaeologist is claiming to have found Hebrew text from over three thousand years ago. It dates from the time of King David and was found on a shard of pottery. An article from CNN (titled Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text) has the details....
- Prehistoric Clam Bakes
Around 164 thousand years ago, some humans were having clam bakes on the shores of Africa. This is reported in an article by Will Dunham titled For early humans, a beach party and clam bake in S.Africa. Dunham wrote, "For early humans, one of the first...
- History Of The World
History of the World This is a short essay which tries to sum it all up! From the site: This is my attempt to put up a decent essay on world history with some of my favorite history links. My name is Jeff Coons and I am a history teacher in Perryburg,...
World History
Human Evolution Speeding Up?
Ralph E. Schmid at Time has an article titled Human Evolution Speeding Up? In it he wrote, "People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say."
Researchers have been discovering the genes and evolution do not always work as we thought we understood them. Evolution can happen quickly. It does not always take thousands of years.
I recently read Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem. In the book, he wrote about jumping genes and retroviruses. Moalem noted, "The capacity of African primates to support the persistent of other viruses may have put our evolution on fast forward by allowing more rapid mutation through exposure to more retroviruses. It's possible that this capacity helped spur our evolution into humans" (p. 153).
Further, Epigenetics is showing that genes can be modified in a generation to deal with issues such as famine. If the gene markers are not turned off after a few generations, the genes can be modified. The Scientist has an article on this titled Epigenetics: Genome, Meet Your Environment.
The article in Time does not deal with all of this but it is interesting. It postulates that evolution is occurring more frequently now due to a larger human population and the fact that humans live in more diverse environments. Schmid wrote, "Harpending and colleagues looked at the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees, our closest relatives, they report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found. That indicates that human evolution had been slower in the distant past."
- Looking At 4,000 Year Old Dna From Greenland
There is an interesting find at of Greenland. The DNA of a 4,000 year old man was sequenced and some surprises were discovered. An article titled After 4,000 years, DNA suggests ancient Greenland man had risk of baldness and even dry earwax was written...
- When Were Horses Tamed?
The BBC has a new article up titled Horses tamed earlier than thought. It begins with, "Horses were domesticated much earlier than previously thought, according to a team of researchers. They found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by a culture...
- 3,000 Year Old Hebrew Text
An archaeologist is claiming to have found Hebrew text from over three thousand years ago. It dates from the time of King David and was found on a shard of pottery. An article from CNN (titled Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text) has the details....
- Prehistoric Clam Bakes
Around 164 thousand years ago, some humans were having clam bakes on the shores of Africa. This is reported in an article by Will Dunham titled For early humans, a beach party and clam bake in S.Africa. Dunham wrote, "For early humans, one of the first...
- History Of The World
History of the World This is a short essay which tries to sum it all up! From the site: This is my attempt to put up a decent essay on world history with some of my favorite history links. My name is Jeff Coons and I am a history teacher in Perryburg,...