A family tree for the human race
Some surprising facts have emerged from the study of the human genome over the last few years. Beyond simply confirming Darwinian theory and corroborating paleontological findings, human DNA from folks all over the globe is being compared and analyzed to answer questions we never thought we’d be able to answer. For example, all humans can trace ancestry back to a single woman living in Africa about 200,000 years ago (the African “Eve”). On the other hand, all humans can also trace ancestry back to a single male living in Africa around 60,000 years ago! If a generation is 30 years, thats only 2000 generations ago all our relatives were living in Africa!
This is a great talk by an Oxford Biologist named Spencer Wells. He’s basically involved in building a genealogical family tree for the human race, and he walks the audience through the breakthroughs of the last 15 or so years in genetics in great detail (if a little briskly). If you have 20 minutes, it’s certainly worth a watch.
