Human evolution

Ann Gauger Further to Biologic Institute’s Ann Gauger’s reflections on biology’s many surprises, after a lifetime in science, including surprises about human origins: Cann et al sequenced mitochondrial DNA from around the world to show that all women were descended from a single woman who lived some time around 200,000 years ago. (Similar work was also done for the Y chromosome and the male lineage.) One of the possible interpretations of this study was that the single woman was Eve. The scientist Francisco Ayala did not like this interpretation. To do him justice, it is indeed possible that there were many women alive at the time of the woman progenitor “Eve”, and that their lineages died out over time. Nontheless, Read More ›