Are humans evolving faster?

Genetic evidence found that the evolution of humanity is accelerating, it does not level off or only increases at a regular pace as the researchers still think. Thus, it means that residents of different continents are rapidly different.

The research team leader Henry Harpending, a prominent professor of anthropology at the University of Utah, said: 'We use new gene technology to prove people are rapidly evolving. The pace of evolution has increased tremendously over the last 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age of about 10,000 years ago. '

He also said there are some curious points in the study published Monday December 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 'We are not like our ancestors even recently. 1,000 or 2,000 years'. This may partly explain the difference between Viking pirates and Swedish children who love peace. 'There is a doctrine that is due to cultural fluctuations. But any type of personality is within the strong influence of genes. '

He said: ' Humans are evolving away from each other . Genetic evolution has been strong in Europe, Asia and America but characterized by the origin of each continent. We are more and more different from our fellow human beings, not together to become a unique human being. ' The reason is that Africans dispersed throughout the region from 40,000 years ago. 'There are no more genetic lines between regions ever since.'

'Our research denies the widely accepted belief and belief that modern people (species that can use advanced tools and art) that have appeared since 40,000 years ago have not changed since at that time, we were almost the same as our ancestors. We have proven that humans are changing relatively rapidly over centuries to millennia. This change is different from race to race. '

The rate of human population growth from millions to billions in the last 10,000 years has spurred the pace of evolution because ' we used to adapt to a new environment. The bigger the population, the more mutations occur , 'Harpending added.

  Gregory M.Cochran, a colleague of the study, said: 'History is becoming more like a science novel in which mutants are constantly appearing and taking place of ordinary people - sometimes quietly hard, existed after hunger or disease, sometimes massively like those who invaded. And we are those mutants. '

(Artwork: Cyberpingui.free.fr)

Harpending conducted research with Cochran, a New Mexico state physicist, an evolutionary biologist who self-taught and assisted the anthropology of the University of Utah; there is also anthropologist John Hawks, a Utah-based postdoctoral researcher who now moves to the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Eric Wang - geneticist of Affymetrix, Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif; and Robert Moyzis, a biochemist at the University of California, Irvine.

The distinction cannot be defended

The new study was carried out by two University of Utah scientists, Harpending and Cochran, who created the tremor in 2005 when they published a study arguing that intelligence is above average for people. Jewish churches in northern Europe were the result of natural selection on the medieval continent of Europe, where they were forced to do jobs like tycoon, merchant, manager and tax collector. The trickier ones are successful, wealthy and have big families with crowded descendants. But intelligence is also linked to genetic diseases such as dementia and Gaucher's genetic disorder in Jews.

The study and a few other studies focusing on human genetic differences with more than 99% of the same genes rang the fear of disrupted equality, while stigma and discrimination clan crowned. Others doubt the quality of science, and argue that culture plays a bigger role than genetics.

Harpending said genetic differences in different communities ' cannot be used to justify discrimination. The constitutional rights are not based on absolute equality. Everyone has the right and the opportunity no matter what race they belong to. '

SNP analysis of evolutionary acceleration

Research to find genetic evidence of natural selection - the evolution of suitable mutants - over the past 80,000 years by analyzing DNA from 270 individuals in the international HapMap project. Different variants of human disease genes that can be used for new pharmaceutical research.

The study specifically focused on gene variants called ' 1-nucleotide polymorphisms (abbreviated SNP) that carry mutations at a point on the chromosome. These variations are replicating with a relatively large proportion of the population.

Compare the two identical chromosomes of two different people. The chromosome is made up of the apricot AND double-helix-shaped strands, each of which is made up of amino acid pairs, GC and AT. Harpending said, every 1000 pairs of amino acids will have a difference between the two chromosomes. That is a nucleotide polymorph 1.

The data studied included 3.9 million nucleotide polymorphisms 1 of 270 people from 4 communities: Han Chinese - Chinese, Japanese, Yoruba tribes in Africa and northern Europeans, mostly people Utah's polytheist Mormons.

Over time the chromosomes split and blended together randomly to form a new version of the chromosome. Harpending said: 'If an adaptive mutation appears, the number of copies of that chromosome will increase rapidly' in the community because the mutant has the ability to survive and reproduce.

'If it increases rapidly, it will become popular in the community in a short time.'

Researchers have taken advantage of this to determine whether the gene on the chromosome has evolved . Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each pair of parents giving birth to a copy of themselves. Comparing the same chromosome of many people, if they are the same segment that carries the same nucleotide polymorphism, it means that the chromosome segment has not been separated or recombined in recent times. The gene on the chromosome is definitely just evolving and evolving very quickly. If this happened a long time ago, the chromosome was split and combined with other chromosomes.

Harpeding and colleagues used computers to scan chromosomal fragments that carry identical nucleotide polymorphisms that are not separated and combined, they have just evolved. They also calculated the length of evolution of the gene.

An important finding: 7% of human genes are undergoing rapid evolution.

The case of an increase in human evolution is made by comparing current genetic data with data when human evolution is immutable:

- The study found that more diverse 1-nucleotide polymorphism is expected if human evolution does not change.

- If the new gene rate evolves in the extinct African community 6 million years before humans and chimpanzees split into two species, the genetic difference between chimpanzees and modern humans will be 160 times greater. present. That's why the rate of evolution in the African community represents an acceleration that has just happened in evolution.

- If evolution happens quickly and continuously for a long time, there will be many genes that evolve and spread to everyone. But the study also found that many genes appear more than other genes in the community, which also indicates an acceleration in recent evolution.

Next, they looked at the history of population growth on each continent. The mutations found in genome data have demonstrated the evolutionary process that occurs faster in a larger population.

Evolution and human history: The problem with milk.

'Rapid population growth is accompanied by widespread changes in culture and ecology that create many opportunities for adaptive variation. 10,000 years ago saw the evolution of human teeth and skeletons as well as many genetic reactions to diet and disease. '

Researchers also pay attention to the Eurasian human and environmental evacuation also creating selective pressure to favor the formation of fewer skin pigments (the skin can absorb more light to make vitamins. D), adapted to cold weather and changes in diet.

Because the human population increased from a few million at the end of the Ice Age to 6 billion at the present time, many adaptive genes were born and the evolution accelerated globally as well as in every community on the continents. Geography, Harpending said.

'We have to understand gene transformation to understand history.' For example, in China and most of Africa, very few people can digest mature milk in adulthood. But in Sweden and Denmark, lactase-digesting yeast-producing genes are still active, so ' most people can digest fresh milk ', explaining why dairy industry is more popular in Europe than in Earth. China and Africa.

Harending is currently studying whether mutations that produce non-digestible milk are somewhat motivated by the expansion of the population, even when people from the Eurasian language family migrate from northwestern India to Central Asia along the Persia and Europe from 4000 to 5000 years ago. He also suspected that drinking milk provided more energy for European-Indians who were unable to digest milk, making them able to conquer a vast area of ​​land.

But Harpending believes that the acceleration in human evolution is only temporary due to the change in our new environment since the time when modern humans dispersed 40,000 years ago, especially since agriculture was born 12,000 years ago. This event has changed our diet and social system. If you suddenly choose a hunter-gatherer group and just feed them corn, they will have diabetes. We still adapt to that. Several new genes are spreading in the community, helping us to adapt to a high carbohydrate diet. '