The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyAllen Lane, 2002 - 224 pages Around 60,000 years ago, a man walked the soil of Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How did he come to be father to all of us - a real life Adam? To find out, Spencer Wells embarked on a unique voyage of discovery, travelling the world and deciphering the genetic codes of people from the Sahara Desert to Siberia. He reveals how our DNA enables us to work out where our ancestors lived, (and who they may have fought, loved and learned from); to re-trace their footsteps from Africa to the far corners of the earth ; to understand how we evolved into such a huge variety of sizes, shapes and races - and, ultimately, to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. |
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Page 25
... molecules could serve as a sort of molecular clock , documenting the time that has elapsed since a common ancestor through the number of amino acid changes . In a paper published in 1965 , they actually refer to molecules as ' documents ...
... molecules could serve as a sort of molecular clock , documenting the time that has elapsed since a common ancestor through the number of amino acid changes . In a paper published in 1965 , they actually refer to molecules as ' documents ...
Page 26
... molecules , showing sequence changes accumulating on each lineage . itself , making use of Ockham's razor to minimize the number of inferred amino acid changes and working back to the likely starting point ( see Figure 1 ) . Molecules ...
... molecules , showing sequence changes accumulating on each lineage . itself , making use of Ockham's razor to minimize the number of inferred amino acid changes and working back to the likely starting point ( see Figure 1 ) . Molecules ...
Page 52
... molecules using a technique known as High Pressure Liquid Chromatography ( HPLC for short ) . In particular , he was trying to develop a method of identifying the sequence of a DNA molecule using HPLC , which separates molecules much ...
... molecules using a technique known as High Pressure Liquid Chromatography ( HPLC for short ) . In particular , he was trying to develop a method of identifying the sequence of a DNA molecule using HPLC , which separates molecules much ...
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Common terms and phrases
Aborigines actually Adam Africa agriculture analysis ancient animals anthropologists apes appear Asian Australia Cavalli-Sforza cent central Asia China chromosomes clan climate coastal colleagues common ancestor continent culture Darwin defined descendants developed earliest early human east Asia Eurasian Europe Europeans evolution evolutionary expansion extinct favour frequency genes genetic data genetic diversity genetic variation geneticists genome Hindu Kush hominid Homo erectus human diversity human genetic human migration human populations hunter-gatherers hunting ice age impala India Indo-European Indo-European languages infer ingredients journey known languages leap lifestyle linguistic living marker Mediterranean Middle East Middle Eastern migration million mitochondrial DNA modern humans molecules mtDNA mutations Native Americans Neanderthals Neolithic non-African northern nucleotide Nyae origin past perhaps polymorphisms recent region route sample Siberia simply soup recipes south-east Asia southern species spoken spread steppe suggests thousands trace unique Upper Palaeolithic western Y-chromosome lineages