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>> By analyzing diversity in these parts, scientists are able to deduce the numbers of female and male ancestors a population has. Can anyone explain more on t
by alok-g 9y ago
>> By analyzing diversity in these parts, scientists are able to deduce the numbers of female and male ancestors a population has.
Can anyone explain more on this? Specifically how is the time axis worked out from a study of present-day volunteers?
- barrkel 9y agoI'm not an expert, but the idea is that mutation rates indicate age. If a bunch of people have a particular pattern, but they're all a little bit different to the same degree of difference, you can figure out how old that pattern is. Presumably the changing bits must be in junk DNA otherwise mutation rates would be affected by selection pressure.
- nopinsight 9y agoA non-expert guess: As more generations have passed, fewer common pieces of DNA are inherited and found in the same population? Still, samples from 450 people seem like too small a number of achieve a good estimate.