Happy DNA Day
On April 25th, 57 years ago, Watson and Crick published their article in Nature magazine about the structure of DNA. To celebrate the 50th anniversary (7 years ago), the US Congress established April 25th as "DNA Day".
Since my last gattaca post, the company that did my own dna testing has further specified my maternal haplogroup. I am now officially a member of the U5b2c segment of humanity. Here's an image showing the geographic distribution of the encompassing U5 group.
About 44-55 thousand years ago, a woman was born within the R haplogroup. This woman had a mutation in her mitochondrial dna that allows us to distinguish her from other humans of the time. Her descendants became the U haplogroup, and U5 may be the oldest sub-group in the European region. This wikipedia chart shows how the main maternal group names are related.
Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups
Mitochondrial Eve (L)
L0
L1
L2
L3
L4
L5
L6
M
N
CZ
D
E
G
Q
A
S
R
I
W
X
Y
C
Z
B
F
R0
pre-JT
P
U
HV
JT
K
H
V
J
T
Former Clusters IWX
Semi-related, there is recent news that Homo sapiens may have interbred with other species of hominids. And you probably thought that family trees these days were complicated because of all the trans-continental adoptions, illegitimate births, and serial marriages!
Since my last gattaca post, the company that did my own dna testing has further specified my maternal haplogroup. I am now officially a member of the U5b2c segment of humanity. Here's an image showing the geographic distribution of the encompassing U5 group.
About 44-55 thousand years ago, a woman was born within the R haplogroup. This woman had a mutation in her mitochondrial dna that allows us to distinguish her from other humans of the time. Her descendants became the U haplogroup, and U5 may be the oldest sub-group in the European region. This wikipedia chart shows how the main maternal group names are related.
Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups
Mitochondrial Eve (L)
L0
L1
L2
L3
L4
L5
L6
M
N
CZ
D
E
G
Q
A
S
R
I
W
X
Y
C
Z
B
F
R0
pre-JT
P
U
HV
JT
K
H
V
J
T
Former Clusters IWX
Semi-related, there is recent news that Homo sapiens may have interbred with other species of hominids. And you probably thought that family trees these days were complicated because of all the trans-continental adoptions, illegitimate births, and serial marriages!