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STUDY CONFIRMS HUMAN RACE BEGAN IN AFRICA: Findings Involved African Americans, European Americans and Chinese.
A study of human genome sequences by researchers at Cornell University appears to confirm the theory that modern human beings first evolved in Africa and then gradually migrated to the rest of the world.
The study's findings also suggest that natural selection has caused as much as a 10 percent change in the human gene makeup in some populations.
The study involved African Americans, European Americans and Chinese. African Americans had the greatest genetic diversity suggesting their ancestors had been on the earth longer.
Europeans and Chinese had more recent evolutionary adaptations suggesting that as their ancestors left Africa they gradually changed skin pigmentation due to colder weather and less sunlight in Europe and Asia. They also became better able to digest milk; and there were differences involving the nervous and immune systems.
However, the study found no differences in the genes which control brain development even though some researchers had proposed that idea in the past. The entire study was published in the June 1st issue of PloS (Public Library of Science) Genetics. Overall, the study appears to give genetic support to the Out-of Africa-Theory - the increasingly dominant view that humans first developed in Africa and began their first migration to Europe and Asia about 100,000 years ago.
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source: Taylor Media Services
