Study: Natural Selection Has Strongly Influenced Recent Human Evolution

[Zenlitened]

Natural Selection Has Strongly Influenced Recent Human Evolution, Study Finds

Source: Cornell University

Date: 2005-10-23

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The most detailed analysis to date of how humans differ from one another at the DNA level shows strong evidence that natural selection has shaped the recent evolution of our species, according to researchers from Cornell University, Celera Genomics and Celera Diagnostics.

(snip)

The comparisons within and between species suggest that about 9 percent of genes that show some variability within humans or differences between humans and chimpanzees have evolved too rapidly to be explained simply by chance. The study suggests that positive Darwinian natural selection -- in which some forms of a gene are favored because they increase the probability of survival or reproduction -- is responsible for the increased rate of evolution. Since genes are blueprints for proteins, positive selection causes changes in the amino acid sequence of the protein for which the gene codes.

"Our study suggests that natural selection has played an important role in patterning the human genome," said the paper's lead author, Carlos Bustamante, assistant professor of biological statistics and computational biology at Cornell.

The Cornell/Celera team found that genes involved in immune function, sperm and egg production, sensory perception and transcription factors (proteins that control which genes are turned on or off) have been particularly affected by positive selection and show rapid evolution in the last 5 million years, when humans shared a common ancestor with chimps.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051023115936.htm

[atommom]

1. .... except, of course, for the Kansas BOE, which refuses to evolve.

[WindRavenX]

2. lies!! damned lies!!!

Evolution is teh satan!!!!111