Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm
So who shares a common ancestor with me? ;D
Wow, that's pretty crazy. Well, you and me are part of the club so far. ;)
- Oshyan
I'm not a geneticist but I do wonder about their assumption that because all blue-eyedness comes from the same "switch" then it was probably a single mutation that has been passed down. There's so much we still don't know about genetics and I wonder if there is the possibility that some genes might be more susceptible to mutation than others, in which case maybe the same mutation could have happened more than once?
Matt, we're related!
Me too! One big happy family aren't we?
no offense but this ancestor must have had lot of "fun" back in his day! ;) ;D :D....
my son does ;)
Quote from: seth93 on February 05, 2008, 01:11:12 AM
my son does ;)
Your son has blue eye but you don't. ??? Ever wonder how that can be. My mom and dad both have brown eyes, I have very blue eyes, does that mean that they are not related to this same "common" ancestor as me? Something doesn't compute. On top of that both of my brothers and my sister have brown eyes. :)
sonshine - this is entirely possible. I don't remember the exact terminology (my last bio class was a few years ago ;)) but basically, if each parent inherited one brown trait and one blue trait from their parents, there would be a 25% chance of you having blue eyes (assuming brown is dominant).
I'm part of the blue eye brigade!
If I have green eyes, which is a mixture of yellow and blue as we all know, am I a "Halfling" then?
Well if it is green I would imagine you are a wood elf.
What if your eyes change between blue and green? ???
Sonshine - that's a standard recessive gene phenomenon. Who was the monk with the peas? Mendel?
Quote from: sonshine777 on February 05, 2008, 02:06:15 AM
Quote from: seth93 on February 05, 2008, 01:11:12 AM
my son does ;)
Your son has blue eye but you don't. ??? Ever wonder how that can be. My mom and dad both have brown eyes, I have very blue eyes, does that mean that they are not related to this same "common" ancestor as me? Something doesn't compute. On top of that both of my brothers and my sister have brown eyes. :)
hehe my wife, my grandma , my 2 grandmas have blue eyes... i don't... neither my daughter ^^
blue eyed parents can only have blue eyed children but brown eyed+blue eyed can have different colours ^^
Quote from: Harvey Birdman on February 05, 2008, 10:37:50 AM
Sonshine - that's a standard recessive gene phenomenon. Who was the monk with the peas? Mendel?
Yup, that was mendel.
Basicly, for a lot of genetic characteristics, you have 2 genes. One of each of your parrents. There are dominant genes and recesive genes.
For example, brown eyes is dominant and blue eyes is recesive. That means that if you've got 1 gene for blue eyes and 1 fro brown eyes, you get brown eyes (if you'd have 2 brown or 2 blue, you'd get that colour ofcourse).
Now imagine that a child parrents both have 1 brown and 1 blue. That means that there is 25% chance that the child get's 2 blue's and thus there's a 25% that he (or she) get's blue eyes.
Quote from: calico on February 05, 2008, 09:44:19 AM
What if your eyes change between blue and green? ???
Yeah me too.
Quote from: calico on February 05, 2008, 09:44:19 AM
What if your eyes change between blue and green? ???
you're a freakin' mutant ! and Costaud too !!!
Death to the muuuutants !
Now now mutants have feeling too. With todays ever progressing medical field in a few years we could be able to make you normal!
What if they turn red when someone laughs at you? 8)
Quote from: calico on February 11, 2008, 09:08:10 AM
What if they turn red when someone laughs at you? 8)
As apposed to green, after experimenting with radiation and telling reporters that "You Wouldn't like me when I'm Angry" before changing to that aforementioned green shade and gaining many times you normal strength. (Sorry to go off topic I just had drop that one in)
;D
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
This is why I wear sunglasses. See? --> :o
The red irises aren't visible on the web.
What if you have big anime eyes? I know someone with those and I'm a tad worried.
Quote from: Will on February 11, 2008, 02:56:47 PM
What if you have big anime eyes? I know someone with those and I'm a tad worried.
The better to see you with! ;D (Oops wrong fairytale)
http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/uploaded_images/Shepley-Rolling-Eyes-Unretouched-Red-Eye-10-2-7-714331.jpg
I can't get the red out. Silly me.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_132/file_1312045.jpg
mutants everywhere ! goddamn ! gimme my shotgun !!!
i have blue eyes all my family does!
Blue eyes, babies got blue eyes ... lalalala (<-- Elton John song I believe)
does that also have cococola lalalalalola or is that a different one.
Quote from: Will on April 02, 2008, 06:05:01 AM
does that also have cococola lalalalalola or is that a different one.
No idea, it's ages ago I have heard it ...
Even more of us could be related then, if the gene is recessive (which it appears to be). :)
It's a small world...
So remember to put me in your will everyone, you shouldn't forget about o'l distant cousin Will
I didn't think that the derivation of eye colour was a simple case of dominant/recessive alleles, I though that it involved co-dominance.
It's been a long time since I took a biology class but I'm sure I remember something along those lines...
(btw I also have blue eyes, as do both of my children but my wife has green/brown eyes.)
Inscrutable
But, if you believe the story from the bible, we all have the same ancestors anyways... which is sounding more and more believable to me every day with facts like these...
I am not made of mud.
If you know at least 3 generations of your ancestors and have a face book account, add the Relatively Me application, it will, in time, connect you to oodles of people, but be warned it is only as factual as the information that has been uploaded to One Great Family. I uploaded a gedcom file of about 200 individuals I know I am related to back to the 1500's on both sides of my family and Relatively Me now lists 73609 ancestors and 185 generations,,,,,,much of which is just good for a laugh, such as individuals known only as Visigoth or Guntharr,, and it will inevitably connect you to Adam,,,which may be due to the errant individuals who have posted ill researched genealogical files.
SeerBlue
Quote from: Will on April 22, 2008, 12:14:49 PM
I am not made of mud.
Thankfully, it's only metaphorical. ;D
I'm having a real hard time seeing how there can only be one ancestor. Blue eyes are a recessive allele and therefore there either has had to be mutations in more than 1 guy, or perhaps they were twins. Anyways, it is no secret that we have blue eyes due to A LOT of in-breed...
btw, you can get a kid with blue eyes even if both the parents have brown eyes as long as both of the parents are carriers of that gene...
Spice addiction can give you blue eyes.
Quote from: crosseout on April 22, 2008, 04:40:26 PM
I'm having a real hard time seeing how there can only be one ancestor. Blue eyes are a recessive allele and therefore there either has had to be mutations in more than 1 guy, or perhaps they were twins. Anyways, it is no secret that we have blue eyes due to A LOT of in-breed...
btw, you can get a kid with blue eyes even if both the parents have brown eyes as long as both of the parents are carriers of that gene...
The study shows that we have
a single common ancestor. That does not mean that the first children of that ancestor weren't from different pairings of the ancestor with other blue-eye carriers. It just means that other lineages that don't have the ancestor did not survive to this day. Probably...
Anyway, hasn't it also been proven/suggested that we
all have a single common ancestor if you go back far enough? Obviously this doesn't mean he/she was the first human, but it means that other lineages did not survive to this day. Pretty amazing anyway.
EDIT: Then again, if both parents carry the same gene (which they would need to, as you say), then how can the researches be sure that there is only one common ancestor and not two, or more? Hmm.. something's not right.
Matt
I though it was that we all can be linked back to one of seven or something like that, after that age where we almost went extinct...for the first time.
Eve is thought to be the most recent matrilineal ancestor via mitochondrial dna, she is just one female who lived between 140,000 and 170,000 thousand years ago whose mitochondrial dna can be found in every living person, that does not mean she was the ONLY female that had descendants that survived until today, other females and their line just have males in there somewhere and as males can not pass MDna it was flushed, so to speak, where Eves line is purely matrilineal, over the vast scale of time it became the one. She would have came from a larger population base than 1 (of course) or 2. Ancestral Adam is about 60000 years ago.
Besides some folks posit that the most recent common ancestor ( meaning that somwhere in your tree is someone descended from this person, and hence you) that we all share could have lived as few 3000 years ago. My youngest sister and her husband, who came from a different part of the US, share documented common ancestor in the 1400's named Martel, and through membership in a genealogical DNA group my Daughter's favorite Walmart cashier and I found out we share a common ancestor born in 1610, she is from France and I am not, though I went there once....the world is small.
Will, your are thinking of the seven daughters of Eve,some think nine, who are said to be the common ancestor of Europeans.
SeerBlue
Quote from: Matt on April 22, 2008, 07:38:29 PM
EDIT: Then again, if both parents carry the same gene (which they would need to, as you say), then how can the researches be sure that there is only one common ancestor and not two, or more? Hmm.. something's not right.
I guess whoever had the blue eye gene first can be considered a common ancestor.
This wouldn't be true if there have been two individuals who got that mutation independently from each other but I think the researchers checked that possibility. I guess this is where probability and statistics come in.
Quote from: nikita on April 23, 2008, 10:01:25 AM
Quote from: Matt on April 22, 2008, 07:38:29 PM
EDIT: Then again, if both parents carry the same gene (which they would need to, as you say), then how can the researches be sure that there is only one common ancestor and not two, or more? Hmm.. something's not right.
I guess whoever had the blue eye gene first can be considered a common ancestor.
This wouldn't be true if there have been two individuals who got that mutation independently from each other but I think the researchers checked that possibility. I guess this is where probability and statistics come in.
I think there would need to be two instances of that mutation, otherwise it could not pass to another generation because it is recessive (?) So the first common ancestor can't be the first do develop the mutation, but merely the only common link we have today. But that last part is the thing I don't know how they can prove (that he/she was the only common ancestor), considering there must have been more than one instance at some time before that.
EDIT: Maybe I should just read their paper. These journalistic articles never explain these things correctly anyway ;D
Matt
There would need only be one mutation, say Bob is the first to be born with blue eyes ( he probably would have caused quite a stir, wouldn't he), he then has children and passes his blue eyed gene onto his children, but his mate passes on the brown eye gene, since one theory says that only one correct gene is needed to create brown eyes, the children would be brown eyed, but would carry a blue eyed gene as well.
One set of genes from the Father (blue) and one set from the Mother (brown).
Their children have children, and as it is random chance to which gene they pass on, brown or blue, in later generations the chances increase that a child will again end up with two blue eyed genes and have Blue eyes. Quicker in a smaller population base, due to intermarriage. Then the whole cycle starts again.
If both parents are Blue eyed , theoretically they should not be able to give birth to a brown eyed child, they would not have a working copy of the brown eye gene, yet they do have brown eyed children. So it is thought there is another gene involved that has not been found yet (green eyes?) that also plays a part.
This Common ancestor (or the Blue Eyed Adam/Eve), and Most Recent Common Male/Female Blue Eyed Ancestor (the latest individual we all share in our family tree with blue eyes), would be two different things, as is Chromosomal Y Adam(the earliest common male ancestor), and MtDNA Eve.
Genetic testing will probably find other common ancestors who introduced genetic mutations into the dna, some of which are all inclusive and others which cover only a subset of the population, can you say lactose intolerant.
You are related to a lot more people than you think, the first 20 generations ( about 400 years at 20 years to a generation, though the US avg is now about 25 years) above you are something like this 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, 1048576..(odd how it follows the original terragen image ratio, isn't it)... so some of my 1,048,576 ancestors who comprise my 20th generation MAY to be in your line. Go further back, say 3000 years and they HAVE to be in your line (as the increase is exponential 80 generations, 1600 yrs, is like a trillion trillion people, if none of them were common, so they have to be), These are not your traditional paternal or maternal surname ancestors most people track but all parents of parents of parents,,,
SeerBlue
Seer: Ah! I completely forgot about that. Thanks :)
No problem, the blue eyed thing has always interested me as in my family tree 2 distinct Smith families intermarried in about 1794, a male descendant of Reverend Henry Smith, named James, and a female descendant of Lt Samuel Smith, named Elizabeth.
The branch Lt Samuel Smith is described in period literature as having males who are blue eyed and blond, and the other, that of Reverend Henry is described as dark eyes and hair. So theoretically, this could be where the Blue Eyed gene entered my maternal line. My parents are both brown eyed, though I have siblings who have blue eyes.
It may well have been introduced or reintroduced, at other points, but it has made for interesting research.
Genetic Y chromosomal testing, has shown that direct paternal descendants of Rev Henry and direct paternal descendants of Lt Samuel, are not related, though they are both R1B1, Western European, so perhaps someday this blue eyed thing can narrow down where Lt Sam's ancestors originated.
SeerBlue
Ya, you are right, there can be only one ancestor. Genetics is a subject not always correctly understood. You have to apply it to social dynamics and human psychology as well. Let's say there is born a blue eyed baby (male, not female) somewhere in central asia 10 000 years ago. Blue eyes were previously unheard of, and would therefore be considered very special, so special to the point that the tribe of perhaps 60 people the baby was born into considered him not just a decendant from a god, but a god. This would probably cause the blue eyed boy to inseminate every girl and woman from he got into puberty and til his death as monogamy after all is a new idea. There would probably be little competition from other males as he was after all, a god. There would probably be about 20-30 females in fertile age (people didn't live very long), which would make for several offspring, probably 1 every 4 years for each woman and a pretty high infant death rate (probably more than 50%). When these children grew up, they were all carriers of the blue eye gene, but none of them would show it as it was only their father who had the allele. What happens next is in-breed, a lot more than was usual. Since almost all the children in about 20-30 years have the same father, they won't have many other choices anyways, so they mate with each other and about 25% of their children would have blue eyes, now they were considered special as well since it was about 30 years since the first blue guy died. They do some in breeding again and there we go, in-breed all the way...
What really amazes me though is how the h**l they survived. Our most deadly enemy is the bacteria; more people died from diseases than from any other cause. So the gene's way of handling this is with pheromones; one will only be attracted to persons with different immunity systems in order for their offspring to gain information of how to fight diseases from two different sources with different information. This however would not be the case in the blue eyed village, and it is truly lucky that they survived long enough to spread blue eyes to the extent they have without being wiped out by some plague... oh well...
I am your father!
Quote from: Will on April 24, 2008, 11:17:23 AM
I am your father!
No! No! No!,Thats...Thats impossible.
;D
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Will, I seem to remember, or misremember, that you are from NH,,where I misspent my youth ,,,I may well be your father ;D...
Not really, I was in Europe for my wild years,,,but I do have Walkers in my family.
SeerBlue
Good point about the pheromones crosseout, it is also thought that on a very basic level, more in the early days than now, females would choose, for many reasons and your's included, a mate that would give the best chance of healthy offspring, and who was much different than her family unit, to mate with, but would marry or bond with a male who was similar to her own family to raise her children,thinking they would increase the chance of long term survival,,so the blue eyed village would have it tough.
perhaps giving rise to the saying "he married his mother"
SeerBlue
this is interesting
"One survey estimated that nearly 90% of Icelanders have blue or green eyes. Blue eyes are often found in Northern European countries, and are most common in Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia and the United Kingdom. [26] They are also present, to a moderately lesser extent, in Southern Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and India. A 2002 study found the prevalence of blue eye color among Whites in the United States to be 33.8% for those born between 1936 and 1951 compared to 57.4% for those born between 1899 and 1905[/font].[7]"
Larger population, less inter-marriage, fewer blue-eyed people, guess you are all on your way to becoming an oddity once again :D
Quote from: SeerBlue on April 24, 2008, 12:29:27 PM
Will, I seem to remember, or misremember, that you are from NH,,where I misspent my youth ,,,I may well be your father ;D...
Not really, I was in Europe for my wild years,,,but I do have Walkers in my family.
SeerBlue
Hehe yep am a true Yankee.
I've personally always been interested in the yellow eyes of Attila the Hun.
Well, females in our society today respond to certain types of behaviour differently, just as they would back then. As a matter of fact women are very attracted to alpha-male behaviour such as confidence, preselection and so on... Women feel a strong urge to sleep with the alpha male as fast as possible. However, the alpha-male usually have a lot of women and thus divided resources. Therefore the woman would find someone who could support them the 4 years they needed it. Get another man to raise another man's child because his genes are not sufficient for the woman(;
This pattern of behaviour can also be seen today; the women who are unfaithfull often (probably unconciously) have more sex with her lover when she has a high chance of getting pregnant, but not at those times with the husband.
As for the blue eyed people over in india and afghanistan, it can be explained by the origin of the blue eyed people which was in central asia from where they migrated southwest to north india. There they introduced the caste system to keep the population under control before they kept moving west.
The diminishing of blue eyed people is due to the dominance of brown eyes...
Quote from: crosseout on April 24, 2008, 03:41:25 PM
Well, females in our society today respond to certain types of behaviour differently, just as they would back then. As a matter of fact women are very attracted to alpha-male behaviour such as confidence, preselection and so on... Women feel a strong urge to sleep with the alpha male as fast as possible. However, the alpha-male usually have a lot of women and thus divided resources. Therefore the woman would find someone who could support them the 4 years they needed it. Get another man to raise another man's child because his genes are not sufficient for the woman(;
I.. simply don't share these views. We're talking about blue eyes here... I'm pretty sure most woman also look for other things than the color of the eyes ;D
Interesting read
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/24/close.call.ap/index.html
Heh.. I don't think I'll understand much of that paper ;D
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/2045q6234h66p744/)
Quote from: nikita on April 24, 2008, 05:28:45 PM
Quote from: crosseout on April 24, 2008, 03:41:25 PM
Well, females in our society today respond to certain types of behaviour differently, just as they would back then. As a matter of fact women are very attracted to alpha-male behaviour such as confidence, preselection and so on... Women feel a strong urge to sleep with the alpha male as fast as possible. However, the alpha-male usually have a lot of women and thus divided resources. Therefore the woman would find someone who could support them the 4 years they needed it. Get another man to raise another man's child because his genes are not sufficient for the woman(;
I.. simply don't share these views. We're talking about blue eyes here... I'm pretty sure most woman also look for other things than the color of the eyes ;D
well, if you read the thread you would see that we are now talking about genetics and social dynamics now...
I know - what I'm saying is that I don't believe that blue eyed babies/people caused such extreme reactions from their social environment that you mentioned in your last two posts.
Of course Blue Eyes would not be the only criteria for selection, the person would have to offer pretty much the same things as today, strength, security, social standing, appearance and so on.
And as the mutation that caused Blue Eyes does not appear to have brought any debilitating effects along with it, the Blue Eyed individual had to rely on the rest of his genetic hodgepodge and what he made of himself to put those things forward...
But Blue Eyes may very well have been an advantage to an individual who offered all those other things a mate looked for, over others who were not Blue eyed.
The high number of Blue eyed people in Iceland now, points to Blue eyed individuals being in the majority in the first settlers, so perhaps in the majority in the places they emigrated from,,,and something had to be the defining trait that led to them successfully procreating more than non blue eyed people...History shows the vikings were a hardy lot on average, they had much to offer, so how did most of those who went to Iceland (theoretically) end up being Blue Eyed. (of course the near population crash after settlement could be the reason Blue Eyes prevail,,)
Just conjecture on my part, and I am no longer Blue eyed, they went brown at three.
SeerBlue
This would all explain a lot about my social life...
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D :D
Quote from: nikita on April 25, 2008, 07:47:34 AM
I know - what I'm saying is that I don't believe that blue eyed babies/people caused such extreme reactions from their social environment that you mentioned in your last two posts.
I am not sure what you are pointing to? If it the reactions from women to certain behaviour, that is not extreme, we see it in everyday life, but we never really think about it much. As to the preffered selection of blue eyed people in a early stage of civilization, it can be explained by social value. We humans are the only ones who are able to "beat the system" as a result of our organization. You no longer have to be strong physically, or even mentally to pass your genes on; the main criteria that brings people together is social value. Think how blue eyed people were looked upon as gods in the very early stages; that would bring their social value through the roof; they would grow up attaining all the alpha-male traits normally by the way they were treated... If people thought I was a god, I'm sure I'd have a lot of confidence...
SeerBlue, as to blue eyed people in Iceland, it is due to the fact that nordic vikings, especially from Norway and Denmark used the island almost as a prison; it was where they sent the unwanted lot... Since the nordic people are of the arian (sub)race they would have blue eyes. That is probably therefor I have blue eyes as well since about all my ancestors were vikings...