News tagged with ancestry
Of microorganisms and man: First large-scale test confirms Darwin's theory of universal common ancestry
More than 150 years ago, Darwin proposed the theory of universal common ancestry (UCA), linking all forms of life by a shared genetic heritage from single-celled microorganisms to humans. Until now, the theory that makes ...
May 12, 2010 |
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Friendship may have a genetic component
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research suggests groups of friends may have common genetic patterns. Social scientist Professor James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, came to this conclusion after ...
Jan 18, 2011 |
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Single gene may cause curly hair
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Australia have identified a single gene that strongly influences whether you have curly or straight hair.
Nov 10, 2009 |
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Genes may travel from plant to plant to fuel evolution: study
The evolution of plants and animals generally has been thought to occur through the passing of genes from parent to offspring and genetic modifications that happen along the way. But evolutionary biologists ...
Feb 16, 2012 |
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Genetic study clarifies African and African-American ancestry
People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent, just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry released ...
Dec 21, 2009 |
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Tiny teeth are new mouse species, a rare 'living fossil'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny fossil teeth discovered in Inner Mongolia are a new species of birch mouse, indicating that ancestors of the small rodent are much older than previously reported, according to paleontologist ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 24, 2011 |
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'Peking Man' older than thought; somehow adapted to cold
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new dating method has found that "Peking Man" is around 200,000 years older than previously thought, suggesting he somehow adapted to the cold of a mild glacial period.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Mar 11, 2009 |
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For certain orchids, relatives more important than pollinators in shaping floral attractants
Bees, bats, and moths all follow their noses in search of food from flowers. Plants that rely on such animals for pollination often produce particular chemical scents that attract specific pollinators. However, ...
Oct 26, 2011 |
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Identifying the origin of the fly
(PhysOrg.com) -- Some may think that the mosquito and the house fly are worlds apart when it comes to common ancestry but new research published this week by an international team of scientists puts them much ...
Mar 23, 2011 |
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Researchers looking at a rare disease make breakthrough that could benefit everyone
By working with Canadians of French ancestry who suffer a rare genetic disease, researchers have discovered how three genes contribute to abnormal growth, making a breakthrough that will improve our understanding of many ...
Mar 01, 2011 |
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Native American ancestry linked to greater risk of relapse in young leukemia patients
The first genome-wide study to demonstrate an inherited genetic basis for racial and ethnic disparities in cancer survival linked Native American ancestry with an increased risk of relapse in young leukemia patients. The ...
Feb 06, 2011 |
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Rotten experiments help to create picture of our early ancestors
(PhysOrg.com) -- An innovative experiment at the University of Leicester that involved studying rotting fish has helped to create a clearer picture of what our early ancestors would have looked like.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 12, 2010 |
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Not the black sheep of domestic animals
Mapping the ancestry of sheep over the past 11,000 years has revealed that our woolly friends are stars among domestic animals, boasting vast genetic diversity and substantial prospects for continued breeding to further boost ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
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Novel studies of decomposition shed new light on our earliest fossil ancestry (w/ Video)
Decaying corpses are usually the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 31, 2010 |
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No such thing as ethnic groups, genetically speaking
Central Asian ethnic groups are more defined by societal rules than ancestry. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genetics found that overall there are more genetic differences within ethnic groups than betwee ...
Aug 31, 2009 |
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Ancestor
An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth).
Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer.
Assuming that all of an individual's ancestors are otherwise unrelated to each other, that individual has 2n ancestors in the nth generation before him and a total of about 2g+1 ancestors in the g generations before him. In practice, however, it is clear that the vast majority of ancestors of humans (and indeed any other species) are multiply related (see Pedigree collapse). Consider n = 40: the human species is more than 40 generations old, yet the number 240, approximately 1012 or one trillion, dwarfs the number of humans that have ever lived.
Ignoring the possibility of other inter-relationships (even distant ones) among ancestors, an individual has a total of 2046 ancestors up to the 10th generation, 1024 of which are 10th generation ancestors. With the same assumption, any given person has over a billion 30th generation ancestors (who lived roughly 1000 years ago) and this theoretical number increases past the estimated total population of the world in around AD 1000. (All of these ancestors will have contributed to one's autosomal DNA is concerned: this excludes Y-chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA.)
Some cultures confer reverence to ancestors, both living and dead; in contrast, some more youth-oriented cultural contexts display less veneration of elders. In other cultural contexts, some people seek providence from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes known as ancestor worship or, more accurately, ancestor veneration.
For more information about Ancestor, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
