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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Study: Geography Affects One-Third of Human Genes

Here is something TDAXP may enjoy. According to a new study up to third of human genes are affected by location and lifestyle. The study examined how different populations of related Berbers in Morocco differed genetically. Factors such as pollution, survival rate, and food intake all play a role.

One reason why this matters is disease. Certain disease occur because of the various settings genes can be on. Understanding geography's link to genes can better allow one to plan and prevent genetically caused disease and save offspring from disabilities.

Catholicgauze wonders if the rise of villages during the dawn of civilization started any major genetic evolutions that benefited us back then or even today.

1 comment:

Dan tdaxp said...

I do enjoy this!

Change-in-genes and change-in-expression-for-genes are something like two rival schools that explain evolution. For the past few years the change-in-genes folks have been rising, mostly because tools are better for describing how genes vary in populations and across time than for how expression evolves.

This study shows that the change-in-expression folks are catching up in technology, and thus in their ability to answer questions.

This is a good thing. The more we know about genes and their expression, the more we know about ourselves!