4 ms·

Actual title: "All of the World's Yeast Probably Originated in China"

• dang 9y ago
  "Yeast came from China" is the HTML doc title. That's also a legit choice.
  • grzm 9y ago
    I should have noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out. I do think the title on the page is a bit more nuanced.
    • dang 9y ago
      Ok, we'll use that then. Thanks!
      • dbasedweeb 9y ago
        Except the title is absurd, because “all yeast” predates any conceivable ability to trace its precise origin, and has existed at least as long ago as a time when Asia the continent didn’t exist, but was part of Pangaea. Either it’s talking about Saccharomyces cerevisiae or it’s a joke.
        • dang 9y ago
          If you or anyone can suggest an accurate, neutral title that is 80 chars or less and preferably uses representative language from the article, we'll happily change it again.
          • dbasedweeb 9y ago
            “Saccharomyces cerevisiae originated in China circa 12,000BCE”
• Semirhage 9y ago
  It didn’t though, yeast is much older than this article claims. For one example. http://www.icr.org/article/a-45-million-year-old-brewers-yeast-still/ http://www.icr.org/article/a-45-million-year-old-brewers-yea... 45 million years old for that example. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596657/ 350 million years old.
  • drb311 9y ago
    The article is saying that all yeast originated in the area we now call China, long before any civilisation appeared there. It's not saying the Chinese invented it. The Chinese might have been the first to find a use for it. But that's not what this article is about.
    • icegreentea2 9y ago
      The article carelessly switches between 'yeast' and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a specific species of yeast.
    • dbasedweeb 9y ago
      ...in the area we now call China... Which was part of the supercontinent Pangea only 250mya, and yeast is probably nearly a billion years old. We’re not even talking about the same crustal surfaces. Given how yeast spreads, what’s the theory for how it was constrained to one small part of a supercontinent? The article is just awful, and title aside is clearly talking about Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or is just full of shit. The claims of the article make perfect sense for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which could plausibly have been traced through genetic studies to China. All yeast though? How do you get genetic info from a good sample size over hundreds of millions of years?!