Greetings fellow Bf Researchers,
Please be aware that today, 888 at 2 pm, Rick Emerson will be adressing the masses. If possible, tune in to am970, online at www.970.am for this historic moment. Although the BFRLC does not generally promote non-Bf related items, we find Rick's address to be something that will benefit people everywhere. Thanks for tuning in!
Friday, August 8, 2008
Neandertal DNA Deciphered
By Tina Hesman SaeyWeb edition : Thursday, August 7th, 2008
Results show modern humans, Neandertals diverged 660,000 years ago
Now there’s even more scientific proof that you are not a Neandertal, no matter what anyone says.
An international consortium of researchers reports in the Aug. 8 Cell that for the first time the complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA from a Neandertal has been deciphered. Comparison of the Neandertal sequence with mitochondrial sequences from modern humans confirms that the two groups belong to different branches of humankind’s family tree, diverging 660,000 years ago.
That date is not statistically different from previous estimates of the split between humans and Neandertals, says Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. The sequence also doesn’t reveal what happened to drive Neandertals to extinction, but it does clear up some discrepancies in earlier studies.
“It’s a major tidying-up of a lot of loose ends,” Trinkaus says.
At 16,565 bases long, the new sequence is the largest stretch of Neandertal DNA ever examined. The DNA was isolated from a 38,000-year-old bone found in a cave in Croatia.
“It’s a nice accomplishment and the next important step toward completing the Neandertal genome,” says Stephan Schuster of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Schuster is part of a group that is sequencing the genomes of the mammoth and other extinct animals, but was not involved in the current study. “It’s a nice landmark on the way to saying what makes modern humans so s
pecial.”
In order to know exactly how modern humans and Neandertals differ, scientists will need to examine DNA from the Neandertal’s entire genome. The sequence reported in the new study was generated as part of a project to decode Neandertal DNA, but it contains information only about DNA from mitochondria.
Mitochondria are organelles that generate energy for a cell. Inside each mitochondrion is a circular piece of DNA that contains genes encoding some of the key proteins responsible for power generation. Mitochondria are passed down from mothers to their children. Scientists use variations in mitochondrial DNA as a molecular clock to tell how fast species are evolving.
Scientists have previously examined a short piece of Neandertal mitochondrial DNA known as the hypervariable region, but this new complete sequence helps clear up some ambiguities from studies comparing Neandertals and humans, says John Hawks, a biological anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Some modern humans have several changes in the hypervariable region that made it seem as if Neandertals are more closely related to modern humans than humans are to each other.
“Comparing the complete mitochondrial DNA genomes of a Neandertal and many recent humans presents a very different picture,” Hawks says. “Humans are all more similar to each other, than any human is to a Neandertal. And in fact the Neandertal sequence is three or more times as different, on average, from us as we are from each other. This change from the earlier picture is a purely statistical one, but it makes a clearer picture.”
Human and Neandertal mitochondrial DNAs differ at 206 positions out of the 16,565 examined, while modern humans differ at only about 100 positions when compared with each other.
The mitochondrial genome contains 13 genes, blueprints for stringing amino acids together to make proteins. The researchers examined the nature of changes within those genes to learn how proteins evolve. Generally, changes that alter the amino acid sequence of a protein are bad because they disrupt the way a protein works or interacts with other proteins, says Richard Green, a computational biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Neandertals have more amino-acid altering changes in their mitochondrial genes than do other primates, Green and his colleagues found.
“This really demands an explanation,” Green says. One scenario that could explain the finding is that Neandertals had very small effective populations long before they went extinct.
But humans also have changes in some of their mitochondrial genes. One gene, called COX2, had four changes specific to humans. Neandertals, chimpanzees and other primates don’t have those changes. “This tells us these changes happened very recently and perhaps conferred some selective advantage” for humans, Green says. The data reinforce the notion that humans are evolving faster than other primates and “it gets us closer to understanding what it means to be a fully modern human.”
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Bigfoot group has busy agenda
What is it with Big foot Groups and their four-letter acronyms and why are they so busy? That was my best Andy Rooney impression. But really theres the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO), Michigan Bigfoot Information Center (MBIC), Sasquatch Bigfoot Research Unit (SBRU), Alliance of Independent Bigfoot Researchers (AIBR), Ohio Bigfoot Research Team (OBRT), Texas Bigfoot Research Center (TBRC)...the list goes on and on. And now Elusive Primates of North America (EPNA). We at the BfRLC have dared enough to add a fifth letter to our
acronym but that's the kind of mavericks we are -- and promise to
always be.
Meanwhile read how busy EPNA are in this article from The Sand Mountain Reporter
By Lionel GreenThe Reporter
Published August 5, 2008
An area Bigfoot research group is busy this summer with planned expeditions near Douglas and Guntersville.
“We just had a report in Cleveland; the police department was chasing a large hairy man off (Alabama) Highway 160,” said Hawk Spearman, a founder of the Alabama chapter of the Elusive Primates of North America. “I’m trying to get in touch with the police officers to get more details from them.”
EPNA meets again Aug. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Oneonta Public Library.
If you add to all the activity a widely circulated story of two men in Georgia who say they have a Bigfoot corpse in their possession, Spearman will have plenty to discuss at the meeting.
“The biggest thing we’re going to be talking about is the supposed Bigfoot find and how it’s going to impact the Bigfoot community,” said Spearman, who heads EPNA in Alabama with his wife, Karen.
The discovery allegedly involves a law enforcement officer and an associate claiming to have found the dead body of a Bigfoot while on an expedition in the mountains of north Georgia. The men are releasing very little information but say they are preserving the large body in a freezer and will reveal the corpse Sept. 1. They insist it’s not a hoax, but many are skeptical because of their lack of professionalism in videos on YouTube.
Spearman is hopeful but wary of the purported discovery.
“I’m in between,” he said. “I believe it’s possible it could happen. If this is a prank, it will be the biggest hoax ever, and the ones that actually believed, it’s going to make them look really, really bad.”
In the meantime, EPNA is planning three expeditions in the next couple of months, including two in Marshall County. The first is an overnight trip in Ashville at the end of this month followed by a search in Horton near Douglas off Alabama 75 in mid-September.
At the end of September or first of October, EPNA is looking at an overnight excursion in the forests surrounding Lake Guntersville.
Spearman said the expeditions are free, but participants will have to pay for their campsites on the overnight trips.
“Anybody’s welcome,” Spearman said. “They’ll need a flashlight and plaster of Paris just in case footprints are found. We believe if you find the evidence, it’s yours.” No firearms or alcohol is allowed on the expeditions. For more information about the Alabama chapter of EPNA, call 205-589-4622 or 205-359-0130 or visit www.epna.webs.com on the Internet.
Copyright © 2008 Sand Mountain Reporter
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