![]() ![]() We now know that the ancestors ( kinds) to these species had massive speciation potential hard-coded into their DNA from the start. Thousands of species have formed within the last few thousand years, and DNA has uncovered how. Species around the globe-from anacondas to zebras-have had their natural histories laid bare by DNA. Humans aren’t the only species to benefit from the discovery of the structure of DNA. Research into human history based on DNA is just getting started, yet these results have already rewritten popular notions of who we are. These discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg. They seem to have replaced whoever was here prior-peoples like the Maya and the Olmecs. Today’s indigenous Americans arrived in the Americas in the first several centuries A.D. Recent studies of the male-inherited DNA, the Y chromosome, indicate that today’s Native Americans were not the first Americans. Native Americans have seen their own history rewritten by DNA. Yes, dark-skinned African-Americans may have lighter-skinned Egyptians as their ancestors. Long story short, this genetic union intimates a historical link with ancient Egypt. But deeper in history, in the centuries before the time of Christ, the major sub-Saharan African DNA lineage joined to what is now a North African one. The nasty history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade makes this connection unavoidable. They might not look Chinese, but DNA betrays the recent link.Īfrican-Americans trace their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa. 2 You could make the case that most Caucasian-Americans are, in a sense, Asian-Americans. However, the majority of Europeans-and the ancestors to today’s Americans-arrived in Europe from Central Asia during the Middle Ages. Nearly all Caucasian-Americans claim ancestry from Europe. ![]() What many do not know is the deeper-and startling-ethnic history that our DNA has revealed. The popularity of genetic testing companies is a testament to this fact. Today, we take for granted that our DNA encodes our traits and ethnic features. Astonishing findings keep calling us back. Since then, it’s been hard to get our attention away from it. The discovery of the structure of the double helix in 1953 turned everyone’s attention to DNA. In the 100 years that followed, proteins emerged as a leading candidate for the physical basis for heredity. But Mendel didn’t know the biological reasons for why his pea plants behaved the way they did. Almost a century prior, Gregor Mendel had published his now-famous results from his pea-plant-crossing experiments, documenting the mathematical behavior of visible traits, like pea seed color and pea seed shape. Prior to 1953, no one knew the physical basis for inheritance. 1 Unbeknownst to them, their discovery opened the door to a seemingly endless room of wild secrets. Sixty-eight years ago to the day, a group of researchers announced the solution to a long-standing scientific mystery. ![]()
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