BAMAD no.20
Brit-Am
DNA and
Anthropology Updates
Updates in DNA studies along with Anthropological Notes of general interest with a particular emphasis on points pertinent to the study of Ancient Israelite Ancestral Connections to Western Peoples as explained in Brit-Am studies.
Brit-Am
Research
Revelation
Reconciliation
The Brit-Am Rose
Official Symbol of Brit-Am
1. Hair analysis offers new
crime-fighting clues
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/hair-analysis-offers-new-crime-fighting/n20080225171209990070?ecid=RSS0001
By Julie Steenhuysen,
Reuters
Posted: 2008-02-25 17:12:37
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists can now tell where in the United States a person
may have been by analyzing a single strand of hair, offering a new tool for
crime investigators trying to identify a body or track criminals.
They said variations in hydrogen and oxygen isotopes found in hair could be
matched to the regional tap water people drank, providing clues about where a
person had been living.
"In people with very long hair, you could get quite a long history," said
University of Utah geologist Thure Cerling, whose findings were published in the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. The tool
would work best on hair samples taken from the head because hair grows
continuously there.
Cerling and University of Utah biology professor James Ehleringer developed an
elaborate map that details regional differences in the hydrogen and oxygen
isotopes based on tap water samples from 65 cities in the United States.
To do that, Ehleringer sent his wife and a friend on a road trip to collect
water and hair samples from barbers in towns in southern, central and
southwestern states. Cerling's children covered the northern United States.
They only gathered samples from cities with 100,000 or fewer people to ensure
that hair samples were from local residents rather than tourists.
"With the whole U.S. blanketed with samples of drinking water, we can see in the
drinking water where the big gradients are," Cerling said in a telephone
interview.
Then they looked to see if the same isotope patterns matched the hair samples.
"We were pleased that they did," Cerling said.
ISOTOPE SIGNATURE
He said drinking water left an isotope signature in the growing hair. Even
people who drink bottled water still use tap water to make coffee or tea or cook
pasta, he said. "You really do use a lot of local water in your everyday
activities."
The researchers said isotope concentrations in drinking water varied because of
regional differences in rainfall and evaporation. Cerling said researchers could
probably tell the difference between Utah and Texas, but not necessarily between
Chicago and Kansas City.
Police officers are already using the tool to help identify a possible murder
victim.
Todd Park, a sheriff's detective in Salt Lake County, Utah, sent Ehleringer hair
samples from a woman whose remains were found near the Great Salt Lake in
October 2000.
An isotope analysis of the victim's hair showed she had moved around several
states in the Northwest. The researchers plan to do an analysis of her teeth to
see if the isotopes can reveal where she grew up when the teeth were forming.
"Every little bit helps," Park said in a statement. "This is definitely
something that will give us a piece of the puzzle."
The researchers said the work had generated a lot of interest from police, but
Cerling said the tool could also be used in anthropology and archaeology. "I
also think it will have some interesting applications in wildlife conservation,"
he said.
2. Query on DNA and Ancestry
Query:
My brother has confirmed my grandmother was a jew.
My mother's mother
Yet, my male DNA is E3b.
Now can somebody confirm that their Grandparent was Jewish.
Is it possible? B
Reply:
E3b is common amongst Jews and is found in about 20% of the
cases..
Only through genealogical research, family records, etc. may a person confirm
that their Grandparent was Jewish
DNA does not help in this case though it could give you informational leads.
3. Genius Can Be Mistaken for Mental
Disorder!
Hunting the genes of genius
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2008/02/25/hgenius125.xml
Extracts:
If we identify and eliminate the genes that cause mental disorders, do we risk
destroying the rich creativity that often accompanies them, asks Colin Blakemore
Isaac Newton was able to work without a break for three days. Einstein took a
job in a patent office because he was too disruptive to work in a university. HG
Wells was so gawky and insecure at school that he had only one friend. Are these
psychiatric disorders that should be treated or genius that should be cherished?
In a new book, Genius Genes, Irish psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald argues that
special forms of creativity are associated with a variety of cognitive
disorders.
He focuses on Asperger's syndrome (a relatively mild form of autism), which
Fitzgerald sees in such curious characters as Isaac Newton and George Orwell. He
also links Kurt Cobain's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD (for
which he was prescribed Ritalin), to his musical creativity.
Last week, at a Royal College of Psychiatrists conference, Fitzgerald describes
how Charles de Gaulle's Asperger's syndrome was critical to his success as a
politician. De Gaulle saw himself as representing his country.
He was aloof, had a phenomenal memory, lacked empathy with other people, and was
extremely controlling and dominating. He also showed signs of autistic
repetitiveness and was similar in many respects to other politicians whom
Fitzgerald argues also had Asperger's, including Thomas Jefferson in the US and
Enoch Powell in Britain.
The increasing power of genetic analysis is now invading the most private parts
of humanity - not just the functions of our bodies and the origins of
straightforward inherited diseases, but also complex characteristics that cannot
be attributed to individual genes.
Many disorders of emotion or thought - not only schizophrenia and depression,
but also more subtle conditions such as autism, Asperger's, ADHD and dyslexia -
tend to run in families.
But none of these conditions has yet been linked to an individual genetic
mutation. Some argue that they are not genetic diseases at all; others that
different genetic mutations, or combinations of mutations, might lead to such
conditions.
Yet others say that they depend on an interplay of personal experiences and
genetics. Avshalom Caspi and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in
London recently explained why certain stressful episodes in life tip some people
into depression but not others. The difference in resilience depends on
variations in a specific gene.
The correlation between creativity and mental illness is a persistent theme in
psychiatry, analysed most eloquently by Kay Jamison, an eminent clinical
psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, and herself a manic depressive, in her
book Touched With Fire.
The oddness of many great writers is well documented and a surprisingly high
proportion of poets, in particular, had symptoms that indicate manic depression.
If we do manage to identify genes linked to manic depression, autism and
schizophrenia, and confirm that they are correlated with creativity, what could
it mean?
The richness of humanity and the power of our culture are, in no small way,
attributable to the diversity of our minds. Do we want a world in which the
creativity linked to the oddness at the fringes of normality is medicated away?
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See also:
BAMAD Archives
DNA
DNA Refuted. The "Cohen Gene"
mtDNA
Y DNA
R1b The Western Japhet?? or not?
haplogroup I
Brit-Am DNA
THE PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF
THE HEBREW PEOPLES
Queries about Race
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