7 ms·

The Genetic Map of Europe

70 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

pygy_ 12y ago
This immediately reminded me of this other map[0], where a plot of the two main components of a PCA of the human genome ends up looking like a map of Europe. ——— 0. http://blog.23andme.com/news/a-different-kind-of-gene-mapping-comparing-genetic-and-geographic-structure-in-europe-the-return/ http://blog.23andme.com/news/a-different-kind-of-gene-mappin...
stretchwithme 12y ago
I like this because at a glance you really can't tell anything about these arbitrary racial groupings in these arbitrarily arranged territories.
rcpt 12y ago
Here's a great related paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735096/?_escaped_fragment_=po=19.2308 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735096/?_escape... The authors took SNP data from 3,000 Europeans and overlay a PCA plot of it on a map of Europe. The result is that clusters in the PCA plot roughly align with national boundaries. They are also demonstrate that: > an individual’s DNA can be used to infer their geographic origin with surprising accuracy—often to within a few hundred kilometres.
return0 12y ago
That red R1b is a strong motherfucker (no pun intented)
- restalis 12y ago
  That red is "Celtic, Basque, Italic, Frisian, and Saxon", a rather too large and too diverse of a group I must say.
MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
> The Balkans is probably the most genetically diverse region in Europe. Following the theory of the selfish gene, maybe it isn't surprising that hey hate each other.
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  "maybe it isn't surprising that hey hate each other" Where did you get that from? Romanians don't hate anyone south of Danube (i.e. the rest of the Balkan Peninsula).
  - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
    I don't think Romania is actually part of the Balkan, at least not by that definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#/media/File:Balkan_topo_en.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#/media/File:Balkan_topo... Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania - they are certainly not good neighbors. Nice people and great scenery though.
carlob 12y ago
Where is Bosnia and Herzegovina? I can understand removing some of the smallest countries, but Bosnia has a larger population than Albania or any of the three Baltic countries. I guess this would have been much more legible if it wasn't presented as a map.
- tlogan 12y ago
  If they put Bosnia and Herzegovina in the map then all these wars will make sense. And you do not want to promote wars. Do you?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- gerbal 12y ago
  Aryan in the context of this article refers to the populations in the Indo-Aryan language group[1] which shares the R1a haplogroup[2] with multiple other groups. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R-M17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R-M17
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Quoting from your Knapp link: Other Aryans could have easily gone down the Sarasvati and Sarayu into north India. Others went from the Indus into Kashmir and Afghanistan, and into Central Asia. Others went into the areas of Gujarat and Sind, and over through Persia and the Gulf region. This is how the Sumerian civilization was founded, along with Babylonia. From there they went farther into Turkey and Europe. This seems to indicate that not only did Aryans exist, but that someone descended from them could have made it onto the map in TFA. Which isn't surprising: people move around all the time, and over millennia they and their descendants certainly could move from India to Europe.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      It seems you're interested in having an argument that is totally unrelated to TFA.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
reitanqild 12y ago
I wish someone could come up with a good way to encode information like this so that colourweak persons could use less time decoding it.
- reinhardt 12y ago
  I'm not generally colourweak and I have trouble decoding it too, J1 and J2 in particular look pretty much the same to me.
  - seszett 12y ago
    J1 and J2 are the same colour. The key used for the slices is on the left of the image. The labels on top show more detail, but several haplogroups are grouped into the same colour. For distinguishing between red and green hues for some people, http://colortest.it/enhance-r:http://brilliantmaps.com/the-genetic-map-of-europe/ http://colortest.it/enhance-r:http://brilliantmaps.com/the-g... might be useful (or the "Enhance green" setting, or switching between the two).
- jheriko 12y ago
  colour coding is generally really bad, and especially when there are more than 4 or 5 things to be labelled.. would it be so hard to put the short one/two/three letter haplogroup names from the keys inside of the largest slices? or to show the pies consistently with the same groups in the same order?
  - pluma 12y ago
    Pretty bold to call the site "brilliant maps" if they rely on crappy colour coding like this. Even with helper tools I can't make head or tails of the map.
    - flexie 12y ago
      Wow. You guys really dislike colour coding maps. Colour coding is really okay for most of us, even if its not easy to distinguish between all colours. What alternative do you prefer?
Aqwis 12y ago
The big difference between Austria and Germany is striking. It would be interesting to see Germany's pie chart by region.
jheriko 12y ago
i look forward to a time when there is free discussion of genetics without having to apologise or make allowances for racists at the same time.
legulere 12y ago
The article "The" is really misplaced here. It's a map about Y-DNA Haplogroups. A mtDNA Haplogroup map would already look quite different which shows how bad they are at showing off genetic relations in Europe.
tokenadult 12y ago
These are already very old data. Another comment here links to a research paper, so allow me to link to a newer review article. Pickrell, J. K., & Reich, D. (2014). Toward a new history and geography of human genes informed by ancient DNA. Trends in Genetics, 30(9), 377-389. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952514001206 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952514... http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/03/21/003517.full.pdf http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/03/21/003517.f... To sum up what the current findings are, "Implicit in this research is the assumption that the geographic locations of people today are informative about the geographic locations of their ancestors in the distant past. However, it is now clear that long-range migration, admixture, and population replacement subsequent to the initial out-of-Africa expansion have altered the genetic structure of most of the world's human populations. In light of this we argue that it is time to critically reevaluate current models of the peopling of the globe, as well as the importance of natural selection in determining the geographic distribution of phenotypes."
mrpsrinkles 12y ago
> Moreover, it should obviously not be used to imply that any country is better than any other. While we there may be differences between some of us, we are all equal. If you need to tell this to your audience you might want to find a different audience.
bbarn 12y ago
"While we there may be differences between some of us, we are all equal." Well, which is it?
- lelandbatey 12y ago
  I suspect that phrase could be interpreted as "While there may be quantifiable genetic differences between some of us, we are all equal in our humanity."
- eCa 12y ago
  Equal as in égalité[1], not similarity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternité http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternité
Trombone12 12y ago
My god, its full of pie charts! And for some reasons they've been dumped on top of a map... As substantiated by another thread, this is a very very poor data visualisation that is being inflicted upon us. Pie charts should never be used with this many segments, and just putting them on top of a map is both ugly and confusing. This would be better displayed as bar charts spatially clustered by similarity and with a country label.
tmn 12y ago
Can anyone recommend a good book covering these topics and the history/migration of these groups at an entry/casual level?

70 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

pygy_ 12y ago

This immediately reminded me of this other map[0], where a plot of the two main components of a PCA of the human genome ends up looking like a map of Europe. ——— 0. http://blog.23andme.com/news/a-different-kind-of-gene-mapping-comparing-genetic-and-geographic-structure-in-europe-the-return/ http://blog.23andme.com/news/a-different-kind-of-gene-mappin...

stretchwithme 12y ago

I like this because at a glance you really can't tell anything about these arbitrary racial groupings in these arbitrarily arranged territories.

rcpt 12y ago

Here's a great related paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735096/?_escaped_fragment_=po=19.2308 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735096/?_escape... The authors took SNP data from 3,000 Europeans and overlay a PCA plot of it on a map of Europe. The result is that clusters in the PCA plot roughly align with national boundaries. They are also demonstrate that: > an individual’s DNA can be used to infer their geographic origin with surprising accuracy—often to within a few hundred kilometres.

return0 12y ago

That red R1b is a strong motherfucker (no pun intented)

restalis 12y ago
That red is "Celtic, Basque, Italic, Frisian, and Saxon", a rather too large and too diverse of a group I must say.

MrBuddyCasino 12y ago

> The Balkans is probably the most genetically diverse region in Europe. Following the theory of the selfish gene, maybe it isn't surprising that hey hate each other.

userulluipeste 12y ago
"maybe it isn't surprising that hey hate each other" Where did you get that from? Romanians don't hate anyone south of Danube (i.e. the rest of the Balkan Peninsula).
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  I don't think Romania is actually part of the Balkan, at least not by that definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#/media/File:Balkan_topo_en.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#/media/File:Balkan_topo... Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania - they are certainly not good neighbors. Nice people and great scenery though.

carlob 12y ago

Where is Bosnia and Herzegovina? I can understand removing some of the smallest countries, but Bosnia has a larger population than Albania or any of the three Baltic countries. I guess this would have been much more legible if it wasn't presented as a map.

tlogan 12y ago
If they put Bosnia and Herzegovina in the map then all these wars will make sense. And you do not want to promote wars. Do you?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

gerbal 12y ago
Aryan in the context of this article refers to the populations in the Indo-Aryan language group[1] which shares the R1a haplogroup[2] with multiple other groups. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R-M17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R-M17
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
jessaustin 12y ago
Quoting from your Knapp link: Other Aryans could have easily gone down the Sarasvati and Sarayu into north India. Others went from the Indus into Kashmir and Afghanistan, and into Central Asia. Others went into the areas of Gujarat and Sind, and over through Persia and the Gulf region. This is how the Sumerian civilization was founded, along with Babylonia. From there they went farther into Turkey and Europe. This seems to indicate that not only did Aryans exist, but that someone descended from them could have made it onto the map in TFA. Which isn't surprising: people move around all the time, and over millennia they and their descendants certainly could move from India to Europe.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    It seems you're interested in having an argument that is totally unrelated to TFA.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]

reitanqild 12y ago

I wish someone could come up with a good way to encode information like this so that colourweak persons could use less time decoding it.

reinhardt 12y ago
I'm not generally colourweak and I have trouble decoding it too, J1 and J2 in particular look pretty much the same to me.
- seszett 12y ago
  J1 and J2 are the same colour. The key used for the slices is on the left of the image. The labels on top show more detail, but several haplogroups are grouped into the same colour. For distinguishing between red and green hues for some people, http://colortest.it/enhance-r:http://brilliantmaps.com/the-genetic-map-of-europe/ http://colortest.it/enhance-r:http://brilliantmaps.com/the-g... might be useful (or the "Enhance green" setting, or switching between the two).
jheriko 12y ago
colour coding is generally really bad, and especially when there are more than 4 or 5 things to be labelled.. would it be so hard to put the short one/two/three letter haplogroup names from the keys inside of the largest slices? or to show the pies consistently with the same groups in the same order?
- pluma 12y ago
  Pretty bold to call the site "brilliant maps" if they rely on crappy colour coding like this. Even with helper tools I can't make head or tails of the map.
  - flexie 12y ago
    Wow. You guys really dislike colour coding maps. Colour coding is really okay for most of us, even if its not easy to distinguish between all colours. What alternative do you prefer?

Aqwis 12y ago

The big difference between Austria and Germany is striking. It would be interesting to see Germany's pie chart by region.

jheriko 12y ago

i look forward to a time when there is free discussion of genetics without having to apologise or make allowances for racists at the same time.

legulere 12y ago

The article "The" is really misplaced here. It's a map about Y-DNA Haplogroups. A mtDNA Haplogroup map would already look quite different which shows how bad they are at showing off genetic relations in Europe.

tokenadult 12y ago

These are already very old data. Another comment here links to a research paper, so allow me to link to a newer review article. Pickrell, J. K., & Reich, D. (2014). Toward a new history and geography of human genes informed by ancient DNA. Trends in Genetics, 30(9), 377-389. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952514001206 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952514... http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/03/21/003517.full.pdf http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/03/21/003517.f... To sum up what the current findings are, "Implicit in this research is the assumption that the geographic locations of people today are informative about the geographic locations of their ancestors in the distant past. However, it is now clear that long-range migration, admixture, and population replacement subsequent to the initial out-of-Africa expansion have altered the genetic structure of most of the world's human populations. In light of this we argue that it is time to critically reevaluate current models of the peopling of the globe, as well as the importance of natural selection in determining the geographic distribution of phenotypes."

mrpsrinkles 12y ago

> Moreover, it should obviously not be used to imply that any country is better than any other. While we there may be differences between some of us, we are all equal. If you need to tell this to your audience you might want to find a different audience.

bbarn 12y ago

"While we there may be differences between some of us, we are all equal." Well, which is it?

lelandbatey 12y ago
I suspect that phrase could be interpreted as "While there may be quantifiable genetic differences between some of us, we are all equal in our humanity."
eCa 12y ago
Equal as in égalité[1], not similarity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternité http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternité

Trombone12 12y ago

My god, its full of pie charts! And for some reasons they've been dumped on top of a map... As substantiated by another thread, this is a very very poor data visualisation that is being inflicted upon us. Pie charts should never be used with this many segments, and just putting them on top of a map is both ugly and confusing. This would be better displayed as bar charts spatially clustered by similarity and with a country label.

tmn 12y ago

Can anyone recommend a good book covering these topics and the history/migration of these groups at an entry/casual level?