Brit-Am Anthropology and DNA Update (2 November, 2014, 9 Cheshvan, 5775)
Contents:
1. Myth Busted: Ancient Humans May Not Have Been Redheads by Tanya Lewis
2. There Are Only 3 Races On The Earth by Brother Shane
3. Ashkenazi Jews and Europeans with Brit-Am Commentary.
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1. Myth Busted: Ancient Humans May Not Have Been Redheads
by Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer  |  October 22, 2014 07:41am ET
Extracts:
Ancient humans found with red hair weren't necessarily redheads in life, but may have acquired their carrot tops after death, a new study finds.
A team of researchers examined the processes that degrade locks, ranging from exposure to the sun's powerful rays or being eaten away by microbes. These processes, many of which begin while a person or animal is still alive, can leave hair with an unnatural, reddish hue.
The findings are not only important for archaeology, but also for conservation efforts and forensic investigations, according to the study published Oct. 21 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. [5 Health Risks of Being a Redhead]
Silvana Tridico is a forensic scientist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and co-author of the study. She's been studying hair for the past 30 years. "There aren't too many people who do it at the level I do it at," Tridico said.
In the study, Tridico and her colleagues examined about 450 hairs from a variety of animals, including ancient humans, modern humans and woolly mammoths. The researchers first examined the hairs under a microscope at low magnification, recording the locks' color, length and physical profile. Using a scanning electron microscope, the scientists examined a fraction of the hairs in much greater detail, revealing the strands' surface contours.
They found that many of the processes that degrade hair occur not only after death, but also in living animals. Microbes, especially fungus, appear responsible for much of the degradation, but sunlight and other factors also play roles.
Hair contains two kinds of pigments, one that produces dark hair and one for red hair. The sun degrades these pigments in a process known as photo-oxidation, but the hair pigment for darker hair isn't as stable as the one for red hair, so hair turns a reddish color when exposed to sunlight for long periods of time. This is why the hair of ancient aboriginal people in Australia has a reddish tint, Tridico said.
The researchers also found that fungi had invaded many of the hairs they studied. Some of the hairs were "just covered by fungus," Tridico said. When a layer of tiny fungal filaments called hyphae coats a hair, it can give the strand a reddish color, she said. And since fungi need heat and moisture to grow, finding them reveals something about the environment in which an animal lived.
Sometimes, hair can pick up red pigmentation from its environment. Iron from soil or permafrost can seep into hairs, staining them red, Tridico said. For example, some of the "bog people" who have been found preserved in peat marshes in Northern Europe have reddish hair. But the bogs contain a lot of tannins, the bitter substance in tea or wine, which can degrade the pigments in hair, Tridico said. While she hasn't examined the hairs from the bog people herself, she said, "I strongly suspect tannins have infiltrated them and given them a reddish tinge."
Like human hair, animal fur can redden after death, too. Some scientists say that woolly mammoth fur was a strawberry-blond color. But "that garish orange color can't possibly be natural," Tridico said. Instead, the animals probably had a layer of colorless hair that soaked up iron from the permafrost, she said.
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2. There Are Only 3 Races On The Earth by Brother Shane
https://sites.google.com/site/themysteryofperfection/topics-marriage-divorce/interracial-marriage/there-are-only-3-races-on-the-earth
Article put up by brother Shane, member of some eccentric Christian sect who does not particularly like us.
Nevertheless the photos are interesting and he makes a point.
Based on physical appearance AND cultural similarities there differently must be a racial connection between the Asian, Amerindian, Melanesian, and other peoples depicted.
In some cases these similarities are very obvious BUT apparently contradict DNA findings??
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3. Ashkenazi Jews and Europeans with Brit-Am Commentary.
Sequencing an Ashkenazi reference panel supports
population-targeted personal genomics and
illuminates Jewish and European origins
Shai Carmi1, Ken Y.Hui2, Ethan Kochav1, Xinmin Liu3, James Xue1, Fillan Grady1, Saurav Guha4,5,6, Kinnari Upadhyay7,
Dan Ben-Avraham7,8, Semanti Mukherjee4,5, B. Monica Bowen2, Tinu Thomas9,10, Joseph Vijai9,10, Marc Cruts11,
Guy Froyen12, Diether Lambrechts13, Ste'phane Plaisance14, Christine Van Broeckhoven11, Philip Van Damme13,15,
Herwig Van Marck14, Nir Barzilai7,8, Ariel Darvasi16, Kenneth Offit9,10, Susan Bressman17, Laurie J. Ozelius6,
Inga Peter6, Judy H. Cho2, Harry Ostrer7,18, Gil Atzmon7,8, Lorraine N. Clark3,19, Todd Lencz4,5,20 & Itsik Pe'er1,21
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140909/ncomms5835/pdf/ncomms5835.pdf
Extracts:
Modelling of ancient histories for AJ and European
populations using their joint allele frequency spectrum determines AJ to be an even admixture of
European and likely Middle Eastern origins. We date the split between the two ancestral
populations to E12 25 Kyr, suggesting a predominantly Near Eastern source for the repopulation
of Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Ashkenazi Jews (AJ), identified as Jewish individuals of
Central- and Eastern European ancestry, form the largest
genetic isolate in the United States. AJ demonstrate
distinctive genetic characteristics1,2, including high prevalence of
autosomal recessive diseases and relatively high frequency of
alleles that confer a strong risk of common diseases, such as
Parkinson's disease3 and breast and ovarian cancer4. Several
recent studies have employed common polymorphisms5, 13 to
characterize AJ as a genetically distinct population, close to other
Jewish populations as well as to present-day Middle Eastern
and European populations. Previous analyses of recent AJ
history highlighted a narrow population bottleneck of only
hundreds of individuals in late medieval times, followed by rapid
expansion12,14.
Brit-Am Commentary:
The above article in DNA discussion seems to be referred to as the article by Itsik Pe'er even though he is the last one listed. The article is dedicated to the subject of DNA and sicknesses.
From our point of view it brings up issues worth noting:
1. The Middle East orign of European peoples is admitted but dated way back till after the Ice Age whenever that was supposed to have been.
2. Ashkanazic Jews are considered half European and half Middle Eastern because half of them today have similar DNA to Europeans. Who is to say however that they did not have the same ancestry before coming to Europe?
3. Present-day Ashkenazic Jews are said to descend from only a few hundred individual ancestors due to a demographic bottleneck in late medieval times. Assuming this is correct consider the following:
Under the Romans the world Jewish population numbered about 4 million or more.
Then came Christianity, persecutions, assimilation, plagues, a general decline in world population, etc, and the number of Jews decreased to less than a million.
Out of that million, lineages have died out so that now the number of Jewish ancestors has decreased even though the population has gone up.
It means that most Jews now descend from only a few hundred ancestors who lived only a few centuries ago!
The same observations may apply to other peoples in the world today.
For instance, I once saw an article that claimed in Finland according to DNA the total number of ancestors could be reduced to about 2000 from ca. 100 CE!4. Also of interest is the remark that Ashkenazi Jews form  "the largest genetic isolate in the United States", i.e. the largest homogeneous group.
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