Yeast Probably Originated in China

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/yeast-sequencing-china/557930/?single_page=true

by kercker • 8 years ago

70 28 8 years ago

timmytim• 8 years ago

It's hard to separate what actually came from China, and what didn't come from China. Not that it isn't obvious (I mean really, you invented the spoon -- also claimed by Korea but whatever -- information overload so they have done themselves a disservice.

pbhjpbhj3• 8 years ago

We'll this is prior to the existence of China, they mean the area now known as China.

Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?

HumanDrivenDev• 8 years ago

You haven't talked to Chinese people have you? They will tirelessly parrot out that China has 5000 years of history (it doesn't), because the Middle Kingdom has to be the worlds oldest civilisation - least a billion glass hearts should shatter.

contingencies2• 8 years ago

Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?

Scholarship in ancient Chinese history here. While 'China' as a concept didn't exist, certain forerunners to key cultural traits defining Chinese civilization were in place by 3000BC. This includes agriculture with pigs, chickens and common intensive staple crops, village structures, pottery, warmaking, Sino-Tibetan language,[0] and critically the indisputable development of written Chinese characters.

However, in addition to these there were also distinct, large, parallel, significant cultures with impressive technical achievements, those such as the Shu[1] Kingdom (finally invaded and destroyed by the Qin in 316BC, and only rediscovered in the 1980s) which was known for its masterful large-scale bronze casting, said to be unequaled in human history.

Prior to 2k years ago, it gets messy fast, and notions of "China" are vague, relative and almost untenable. Chiefly because, lacking any large unifying kingdom to provide political, economic, military and cultural unity, it's very difficult to make blanket statements about an area the size of the modern region of China. There were certainly separate cultural spheres from the northeast (circa Korea), the north, the northwest (Xinjiang), Tibet[2], Sichuan, Yunnan/Guizhou/Guangxi, Hainan, the southeast and Taiwan, from which humans launched themselves in to the Pacific to conquer the final part of the planet.[3] We can make sparse suggestions based on suppositions about overall migrations of people and technology, but not much more.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshao_culture

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_(state)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Tibet

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples#Prehistor...

fungusAmongUs• 8 years ago

Single celled fungi are likely to be older than our current continental arrangement, the title could clarify that yeast had most likely become domesticated in China, maybe around 4,000 ago, from which all modern domesticated yeast may have descended.

hk__2• 8 years ago

the title could clarify that yeast had most likely become domesticated in China, maybe around 4,000 ago, from which all modern domesticated yeast may have descended

That’s not what the paper says. The out-of-China event is estimated to be ~15,000 years ago while the various domestication events were only 4,000 years ago. [1]

[1] https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415... see note 4.

ginko• 8 years ago

This is the most surprising take-away from this article and paper for me. I would have thought a simple pervasive organism like yeast would be millions of years old. But then again I guess there's just as brutal a competition between single celled organisms as it is for complex ones.

edit: As a homebrewer this would also mean that the best place to look for interesting wild strains of yeast for brewing might be in China.

GW1509142• 8 years ago

This is referring to one species of yeast, whereas yeast in general is many millions of years old. This only applies to what is called the Brewer’s Yeast. Yeast as a kind of organism is at least hundreds of millions of years old. As such the title should include the species name, or common name to make clear the truth of this, and prevent confusion.

blahedo• 8 years ago

This is very explicitly contradicted in the article, so your claim is not simply about the inaccuracy of the title. Do you have a cite for your claim?

GW1509142• 8 years ago

The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and 1,500 species are currently identified.[1][2][3]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast

grzm2• 8 years ago

Actual title: "All of the World's Yeast Probably Originated in China"

dang3• 8 years ago

"Yeast came from China" is the HTML doc title. That's also a legit choice.

grzm2• 8 years ago

I should have noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out. I do think the title on the page is a bit more nuanced.

Semirhage• 8 years ago

It didn’t though, yeast is much older than this article claims. For one example. http://www.icr.org/article/a-45-million-year-old-brewers-yea...

45 million years old for that example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596657/

350 million years old.

drb3112• 8 years ago

The article is saying that all yeast originated in the area we now call China, long before any civilisation appeared there.

It's not saying the Chinese invented it. The Chinese might have been the first to find a use for it. But that's not what this article is about.

Yeast Probably Originated in China

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