Some of the comments on SM of late have disturbed me greatly. I am begining to realize that a lot of people are very confused about who they are. Even worse they seem obsessed with trying to convince people who they are not. While sitting in a jury pool all day last Tuesday I did a little bit of reading. I learned of National Geographic’s Genographic Project which attempts to trace the path of humans as they left Africa.
[Spencer] Wells, 36, is a population geneticist using science in global pursuit of the greatest story not yet told: the story of how humankind traveled from its origins in Africa to populate the planet. The most telling clues lie with isolated, indigenous tribes like the Tubu, for their DNA remains, in a sense, the purest. Their unique genetic markers, characteristic mutations in a defined sequence of DNA, are like flags waving from the place their ancestors have inhabited for thousands of years–the starting point for ancient migrations. Any venturesome Tubu who crossed the Sahara to see the outlying world, and propagated in the process, passed on one or another of those genetic markers to his or her offspring. Any traveler who came through the Tibesti and intermarried did the same. Wells might take a cheek swab from an investment banker in Boston and find that same genetic marker: proof that one of those Tubu created a family line that leads, in some circuitous way, over continents and generations, from the Tibesti to an oak-paneled office in Back Bay. It’s in the hope of tracing myriad journeys such as this that Wells, a newly named National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, is undertaking one of the most ambitious and expensive research adventures in the National Geographic Society’s 117-year history: the grandly named Genographic Project.
At a cost of 40 million dollars over five years, the brunt of it borne by National Geographic, IBM, and the Waitt Family Foundation, the Genographic Project under Wells’s direction is establishing 11 DNA-sampling centers around the world, with the goal of collecting 100,000 cheek swabs or blood samples from mostly indigenous peoples like the Tubu. A sense of urgency infuses the project: Year by year, at an ever quickening rate, the outside world is crowding in on, and at the same time absorbing, indigenous peoples. A Tubu who moves to Paris will still have the genetic markers that distinguish him as a Tubu, but the geographical context for his markers will be gone. As for the Tubu who remain in the Tibesti mountains, they may marry more with outsiders as modern technology makes contact more likely. Generation by generation, tracing the last routes of historical migration of such isolated people grows that much harder. Wells wants to map as many routes as he can while their geographical origins are relatively intact.
Now my first instinct was to see if GNXP had already written about this. Sure enough they had. We’ve also had a comment about this story before on our own site. Here is where the project gets fun though. You can settle any identity issues you might have by simply participating:
Purchasing a Public Participation Kit will fund important research around the world–and open the door to the ancient past of your own genetic background.With a simple and painless cheek swab you can sample your own DNA. You’ll submit the sample through our secure, private, and completely anonymous system, then log on to the project Web site to track your personal results online.
This is not a genealogy test and you won’t learn about your great grandparents. You will learn, however, of your deep ancestry, the ancient genetic journeys and physical travels of your distant relatives.
Now that’s just cool. I’m sure I would find out that my ancestors and those of my Pakistani brothers were both impregnated with the genes of Ghenghis Khan’s hordes. It’s only $99.95 + shipping and handling. Alas I can’t participate. The movie Gattaca has me freaked out. If they get a sample of my DNA then they could potentially stop me from accomplishing my dream of spaceflight.
Related previous post
Spencer Wells hosted a series on PBS about this project. It is dramatic and well-done— a bit too slick but with enough information to inspire viewers to do some research.
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=1402989
I participated very early on (more than 3 months ago), and I’m still waiting for my results 🙁 For better or worse, public interest is high on this project, so don’t expect a quick turn around with the testing. But I think my experience has been the worst case.
I don’t know if it’s safe to say that we’ll discover our deep ancestral history. It will only be a small part of a person’s individual history. The test for men can only analyze the y chromosome passed on from father to son, up to the last mutation. Also, the researchers are starting with the assumption that human life came out of Africa – so if you want to go back as far as possible, you can say you came out of Africa.
As always, please correct the facts if I stated them wrongly – this is all from memory. The last time I had any education in biology was my freshman year of high school.
By the way, if you by the kit, you get the DVD with the kit.
Good point runnerwallah. I thought about getting deeper into the science of it but I wondered if most readers would find it interesting. Plus I figured Razib would correct me anyways. To be specific the main critics of his approach point out that a large chunk of autosomal DNA goes unanalyzed when you are looking at the very specific markers of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome to trace your roots.
There are two related books on this subject:
Adam’s Curse: A future without men and The Seven Daughters of Eve
by Bryan Sykes.
The author is a little too interested in his own history, and fancies himself a writer, but the science itself is quite interesting when it is able to escape from the tedious prose.
The first book begins with talking about swabbing for Sykes’ vanity project of discovering his lineage, but has lots of really illuminating trivia about how the Y chromosome (and hence man) is doomed to extinction (cheer, all you feminists). It also talks about the theory of competition between mitochondrial DNA (transmitted only down the maternal line) and the Y chromosome (transmitted only down the paternal line).
To think that all this has been made possible by the reality of genetic sequencing in just the last 15 years, and even the discovery of DNA in just the last 55 years or so. Amazing, exciting stuff to live through!
will discovery do a project on where we’re going?
gr8 blog mate!
Actually, Abhi, I’d really like to know more about the science of it…
Ok I am probably M-9.
Hmm I might be M-17 too.
there recently was an article about this in Time magazine and another in NYT. A service I am aware of is DNAprint Genomics though I personally have not used them. Maybe Razib is more familiar with them.
Problem with their test is that it doesn’t differentiate between European and South Asian. Only Sub-Saharan African, European, East Asian or Native American are detected. Supposedly they are working on a new version to differentiate European from South Asian…
AL Mujahid,
M-9 and M-17, eh? What no M-20?
I propose only M-20s be allowed to post here. Yes everyone has to take a test and prove they are M-20s with American accents!
“…the Y chromosome (and hence man) is doomed to extinction…”
Curious… do you remember what his arguments were for this?
i don’t think these things are really worth the money unless you are an adoptee with no knowledge about your background or perhaps if you are a black american who wants some clue about the geographical origin of some of your ancestors. the tests usually test for specific markers, so they trace the history of genes. on an individual level i don’t think it will tell you anything you don’t know, because the features we really care about (skin color, hair, features, etc.) you can see with your eyes. i think it can give insights to population history, but Y and mtDNA studies tend to give skewed results partly because they are a lineage of just one locus, and, the drift is greater on these (N is smaller).
Tef, M-20 as I understand is only common in the Southern parts of India 😉
I’m fascinated by Well’s work and mission. The Journey of Man documentary on PBS was spell-binding. He seems to maintain serious scholarship while actively trying to educate the lay public in a way that hasn’t been done since Sagan. Though I am baffled by the injection of his not-so-subtle editorializing (We’re all one under the skin”) and by this Sepia Mutiny post relating this scientific endeavor to the reconcilement of discordant views. The accepted theory that modern humans arose from Africa has much social revelance as the fact that we share 98% of our genetic coding with chimpanzees. It’s useful for scientists (and a factoid for all others) …but what sets us part on a community and individual level respectively are those migrations to different parts of the world and that essential 2%.
My point is this: Do I need scientific evidence (continent of origin, shared DNA) that IÂ’m connected with all other humans to be a thoughtful and progressive human being? Unless youÂ’re a religious zealot or still subscribe to chosen people myths, I would hope the answer is no.
That being said it is possible I am making too much of WellÂ’s tagline for a program that was among other things, a commercial product.
wells tends to focus on Y chromosomes, the male lineage, FYI. that is important to know, because your male ancestors might be very different than your female ancestors (as latin americans).
if you want an indo-centric genetic-history narrative, i suggest readers try the real eve by stephen oppenheimer. i don’t really buy his theory, but it’s interesting.
That was totally tongue-in-cheek on my part. That’s why I threw in the Ghengis Khan part 🙂
I’ve heard some interesting stories from people who have already been tested. One story that sticks out is from a fellow who had a marker found exclusively in Jewish populations. Previously, this person thought he was a full-blooded Western European.
Such surprises don’t occur frequently, but they are interesting to hear about when they do happen.
Agh, that previous comment was re: razib who said, “i don’t think these things are really worth the money unless you are an adoptee with no knowledge about your background or perhaps if you are a black american who wants some clue about the geographical origin of some of your ancestors”
One story that sticks out is from a fellow who had a marker found exclusively in Jewish populations. Previously, this person thought he was a full-blooded Western European.
Such surprises don’t occur frequently, but they are interesting to hear about when they do happen.
sure, but we don’t always know that there is a 0.00% presence of a particular marker in a given population. we don’t even know if it is an independent mutation (though usually there are ways to figure that out). my point is that when you have a large enough sample of people who take tests you will get some oddball results because populations are a flux of gene frequencies, many of whom are not disjoint (exclusive to one but not another). this is why i am rather skeptical about individual testing vs. the information one can glean about populations.
Interesting – what are some of the tests and methods used to determine a marker was an independent mutation? Interested in reading more.
what are some of the tests and methods used to determine a marker was an independent mutation?
from what i recall they usually look closer at the nucelotide structure. also, there are sometimes nearby sequences of the genome that have “hitchhiked” along with the allele in question in population A where allele 1 is common.
I propose only M-20s be allowed to post here. Yes everyone has to take a test and prove they are M-20s with American accents!
I suppose, even M-52 and M-69s should also be allowed to post here. Another 50% population in South India belong to these to markers, I think.
Yamini, the basic theory about the extinction of the Y chromosome is that there is only one of its kind in every pair of mammals (male, or XYs, as brimful likes to call us, and females, or XXs 🙂 that is producing an offspring. Hence, the Y cannot be repaired by recombination with X, except at its tips, during sexual reproduction or meiosis (because, recombining with X could mean that the Sex-determining Region on the Y -SRY – could get swapped with the X, removing the distinction between the sexes). In fact, the prevailing theory was that the Y chromosome is a genetic wasteland because many genes on the Y chromosome have become irreparably damaged over time, and that the Y has only around 20-40 genes on it.
The SRY gene, which is believed to trigger the change of female babies to male early in the embryo development phase, is basically a master switch that turns on a bunch of other genes in several pathways involved in production of a variety of hormones etc. To date, the only mammal known that does not have an SRY (and hence, Y chromosome) is the Armenian vole, which seems to have lost it at some point in its evolutionary history, and instead seems to have figured out how to turn genes on later in this pathway without an SRY (the mechanism is not understood). Thus, the Armenian vole has males without the Y chromosome, and this risk of extinction, and this seemed like the only escape route for human males too.
Having said all that, the sequencing of the Y chromosome has provided recent new information that is changing the way scientists think about this. First, the Y chromosome is now believe to have around 78 genes in it, far more than the original belief. Additionally, all the legitimate genes in the Y chromosome seem to be on palindrome sequences on the Y chromosome, which means that the Y can repair itself by the neat trick of exchanging sequences with itself. Maybe, this is what Woody Allen meant when he said about something else – at least it is sex with someone I love!
And, of course, the fact that I am posting about Y chromosome recombination at 4 AM is another piece of evidence for my unsullied state. Now for that scholarship, Mr. Sulaiman Madada.
for those who want more complete information on the process of recombination of the sex chromosomes and the decay of the y chromosome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome
yes, i was procrastinating at work :).
Rahul, in all fairness, I shamelessly stole the usage of XY from a certain Amelie-Freak… well, and biologists everywhere. 🙂
I have met Spencer in Bombay when he released his book The Journey of Man herea, and he’s a really cool guy,a very clear-headed geneticist.
My point is this: Do I need scientific evidence (continent of origin, shared DNA) that IÂ’m connected with all other humans to be a thoughtful and progressive human being? Unless youÂ’re a religious zealot or still subscribe to chosen people myths, I would hope the answer is no.
You may not,but once you discover just how many people are religious zealots, you’d agree with Spencer.
If Wikipedia is aiming to be the sum of human knowledge available to humanity, Spencer is aiming at proving to us that we all descend from one man who lived 60,000 years ago in Africa.
Think about it. Someday you’ll be producing his study in court as evidence against racial discrimination.
Respect when its due.
advice is given to everyone by only the wise benfit me
I have researched my ancestry, and have traced it back to the early 1700’s, and have found out that there is no deterrent from a branch of Mennonites who lived together in villages. There were no outsiders that came in from elsewhere. Marriages were arranged, and the Mennonites began in North western Holland. From there, they went to Danzig, Poland, where they lived from about 1560 to 1800, and because of persecution, again, they had to travel to the eastern steppes of Europe, in the Ukraine. They stayed there until 1875, when once again, enlistment in the war became mandatory, so they traveled to North and South America. My mother’s family went to Pennsylvania, and shortly thereafter, moved to Alberta. My father’s family went to Manitoba, and soon went to Alberta. My parents met in Alberta, and I was just wondering how such untainted history might be of interest to the subject of DNA study. As far as I can tell, there has been untainted Mennonite blood in my history for at least 500 years.Before that I don’t know, but some say that Europe was started by a group of about 50 people.