Modern people are still evolving

Evolution never really stops, that's why our modern humans are still experiencing changes in evolution.

Recently, some researchers have discovered evidence in human genes, proving that our ability to reproduce and function is still changing over time.

not a massive and powerful process. It involves slow and lasting changes across generations. These transformations are also extremely small and delicate, so we can hardly recognize it. However, geneticists at the University of Queensland in Australia have found a way to detect these changes. They use statistical methods to find mutations in DNA.

Scientist Jian Yang, Jian Zeng and a group of other researchers from the University's Institute of Molecular Biology and Institute of Brain Research studied genetic data of 126,545 individuals at the British Biology Bank - here is an anonymous health database in the United Kingdom. The researchers carefully examined 28 complex characteristics, such as heel bone mineral density, male pattern baldness, BMI, menopause and first menstrual period in women, age of women give birth for the first time, force to squeeze the hand and the proportion of the hip-waist.

Modern people are still evolving.(Photo: iStock).

By studying genes that are linked to the above-mentioned characteristics of individuals at different ages, scientists can see differences between generations.

"In the natural selection process, or" the survival of the most suitable individual ", the characteristics are likely to improve human survival much more likely to be passed on to the next generation. On the contrary, DNA mutations that adversely affect the most suitable individuals are also less likely to be inherited for the next generation, which is called the negative selection process , 'Yang said. expression.

The researchers said they found evidence of the negative selection process - here to eliminate harmful gene variants - in some characteristics. And the most convincing evidence is those related to cardiovascular function and reproductive function.

For cardiovascular function, the team found changes in waist circumference and waist-hip ratio. Previously detected amounts of excess fat are significantly related to the risk of cardiovascular disease. The team also found evidence of changes in blood pressure.

But the age of menopausal women - related to fertility - shows the most dramatic change. The age at which women first menstruate and the first time they give birth is very significant signs, as they show a strong correlation between fertility and appropriate genetic genes.

Evolution includes negative and positive selection processes.(Photo: Suckhoedoisong).

This is not the first time scientists have analyzed data from the Bio Bank about changes in human evolution. Last year, researchers at the University of California, Irvine studied DNA of more than 500,000 individuals to consider both positive and negative selection processes. They found that evolution would benefit men with high BMI (perhaps due to large muscle mass) and in women who gave birth early.

In a 2011 study, scientists said that changes in the evolutionary process developed quite regularly but were not easy to see. Because it takes about a million years for an evolutionary trait to grow and survive. This new study may not help us realize the great changes that evolution affects people, but it helps science better understand the evolution of nature and how the selection process works.

"Negative selection prevents 'bad' mutations from spreading to the entire population, which means that common DNA variants may have little or no effect on the characteristics. will help us better understand the genetic basis of complex traits and help create future experiments to study the complex traits and genome of medicine, ' said scientist Zeng.

Research by a group of scientists has been published in Nature Genetics.