Explosive hypothesis about humans' lack of genetic diversity

http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/2008/03/17/explosive-hypothesis-about-humans-lack-of-genetic-diversity

by BadCookie • 15 years ago

19 5 15 years ago

kqed.org

iwwr• 15 years ago

The hypothesis is neither explosive, nor new.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Genetic...

EwanG• 15 years ago

I think by "explosive" they were talking about the volcano, not that the theory was that sensational. Granted the choice of the natural pun was probably not the best... :-)

nivertech• 15 years ago

Look at figure 3 in this PDF:

http://napobo3.lk.net/dna/Behar_2010.pdf

_sh• 15 years ago

If the Indonesian volcano reduced the human population to 1000-10000 breeding pairs, would it not also have reduced the chimpanzee population similarly?

It's an interesting hypothesis, but similar to the idea that the Yacutan asteroid wiped out the dinosaur population. If that were the case, how did other species survive?

tectonic• 15 years ago

If true, it's remarkable that we exist today at all.

Explosive hypothesis about humans' lack of genetic diversity

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