The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyPenguin Adult, 2003 M05 29 - 288 pages Around 60,000 years ago, a man, identical to us in all important respects, walked the soil of Africa. Every man alive today is descended from him. How did he come to be father to all of us - a real-life Adam? And why do we come in such a huge variety of sizes, shapes, types and races if we all share a single prehistoric ancestor?
In this fascinating book, Spencer Wells shows how the truth about our ancestors is hidden in our genetic code, and reveals how developments in the cutting-edge science of population genetics have made it possible not just to discover where our ancestors lived (and who they may have fought, loved, learned from and influence) but to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. |
From inside the book
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... chromosomes - it is relatively easy to break both chromosomes in the middle and reattach them to their partners , forming new , chimeric chromosomes in the process . The reason why this occurs , as with the mixing of Mum's and Dad's DNA ...
... chromosomes are exceptions to the 50 : 50 sexual mixing rule . The double layout of our genomes , with two copies of each chromosome , fails us when we get to these chromosomes . This is because of the way in which sex is determined in ...
... chromosomes marked with M45 - they would have had unmarked Eurasian M9 Y - chromosomes . This is because new markers do not immediately increase in frequency to the point where all other markers - such as the ancestral M9 lineage - are ...