Be patient with us humans – we're still evolving

Be patient with us humans – we're still evolving

www.csmonitor.com

New data on the accumulation of recent mutations in the human genome upends the standard assumption that modern humans have evolved little since they emerged from Africa some 40,000 years ago. Instead, team leader Henry Harpending at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City says the data indicate that "humans are evolving rapidly and that the pace of change has accelerated a lot in the last 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago." He adds, "We aren't the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago."

Professor Harpending and colleagues at several other universities are tracking the occurrence of simple point mutations along the genomes of specific individuals. The data include 3.9 million of these mutations in 270 people from Han Chinese, Japanese, African Yoruba tribe, and northern European populations. The Europeans are represented largely by Utah Mormons.

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Related News Links:
www.sciencedaily.com
www.nytimes.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
New Proof of Recent Human Evolution

This study seems to indicate that indeed humans are evolving rapidly and that globalization hasn't much affected the evolution. Human groups on different continents are moving away from each other genetically.

My question is: Does this necessarily indicate a natural evolutionary process or are these changes somehow induced into the populations?

www.csmonitor.com
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