Humans ARE still evolving - NYT and PLoS articles
- From: "Marc" <mbuhler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 6 Mar 2006 19:30:13 -0800
An article - free in full text form - is in today's web page
pf the Public Library of Science - Biology journal (PLoS)
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1545-7885
It is also reported in the New York Times and there is
a synopsis article in PLoS-Biology as well.
From the Science section of the New York Times web site:
********************************
"Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story"
By NICHOLAS WADE Published: March 7, 2006
Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving,
researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome
where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a
principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.
The genes that show this evolutionary change include some
responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone
structure,
skin color and brain function.
Many of these instances of selection may reflect the pressures that
came to bear as people abandoned their hunting and gathering way
of life for settlement and agriculture, a transition well under way in
Europe and East Asia some 5,000 years ago.
Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in
a population as their owners have more progeny.
Three populations were studied, Africans, East Asians and Europeans.
In each, a mostly different set of genes had been favored by natural
selection. The selected genes, which affect skin color, hair texture
and
bone structure, may underlie the present-day differences in racial
appearance.
*****
NY Times article continues at
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?hp&ex=1141707600&;
en=8224f14d7e91d5d4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
(this link is split in two..)
*****************************
Synopsis Citation:
Gross L (2006) Clues to Our Past: Mining the Human Genome for
Signs of Recent Selection. PLoS Biol 4(3): e94
Within the past 100,000 years, Homo sapiens left Africa in search
of new opportunities, likely crossing paths with H. erectus in Asia
and H. neanderthalensis in Europe. These early pioneers encountered
unfamiliar climates, habitats, and food sources (not to mention alien
human species). Then, after adjusting to a major climate change
following the last ice age, they underwent a dramatic lifestyle switch,
from hunting and gathering to agriculture-a change that brought
crowded living conditions and new infections. All these radical
changes likely precipitated significant genetic adaptations, with
selection favoring genotypes most suited to the novel conditions.
Indeed, recent studies have found evidence of strong selection on
new gene variants reflecting adaptations to disease (conferring
resistance to malaria) and dietary changes (lactose tolerance).
In a new study, Benjamin Voight, Sridhar Kudaravalli, Jonathan
Pritchard, and their colleagues take a global approach to search
for such signals across the genome and characterize the types
of gene variants, or alleles, targeted by selection. Analyzing
variants called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in three
populations-one sampled from Africa; one, a combined sample
of Japanese and Chinese individuals from Asia; and one from
Europe-they found widespread signals of recent positive selection
in all three populations. These signals highlight the types of
biological
processes that have been targeted by selection during the evolution
of modern humans.
(Synopsis continues at Public Library of Science - Biology)
*********************
PDF of synopsis:
http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/4/3/pdf
/10.1371_journal.pbio.0040094-p-L.pdf (link split in two here)
*******************
(signed) marc
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