Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Some of us are younger than we thought

The amazing thing is, today’s Europeans are 4,500 years old.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ancient-dna-tells-a-new-human-story-1430492134?mod=trending_now_1

“Two genes that affect skin color were also subject to rapid evolutionary selection as early farmers tried to subsist on grain-rich, vitamin-D-poor diets in northern areas with low levels of sunlight. (Sunlight helps the body to convert a form of cholesterol into a form of vitamin D.) The shift to pale skin—which produces vitamin D more efficiently than darker skin—among northern Europeans after the advent of farming appears to have proceeded rapidly, pointing to some of the strongest selection pressures ever recorded in human genetics.”

Link at http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/

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