Bigfoot DNA? Not so fast, many say# Animals - 动物园
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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-sasqua
Bigfoot DNA? Not so fast, many say
http://www.trbimg.com/img-50b54dcc/turbine/la-sci-sn-sasquatch-
A Texas veterinarian-researcher claims to have shown that the elusive
creature known as Bigfootor Sasquatch is a human hybrid, descended from
human females who mated with males of “an unknown hominin species.” In a
statement released on Saturday, Melba S. Ketchum said that her conclusions
emerged after she sequenced samples of purported Sasquatch DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA in the samples, which offspring inherit from their mothers
, was identical to modern human mitochondrial DNA, she said. But the nuclear
DNA samples — the genetic blueprint that mixes genetic material from both
parents — appeared to be a mix between human nuclear DNA and “novel non-
human sequence.”
“Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern
human maternal ancestry,” Ketchum said in the statement.
But many others weren’t yet convinced. A few of their reasons:
This is Bigfoot we’re talking about, a creature that has never definitively
been observed, despite decades (centuries?) of reported sightings. Over the
years, Los Angeles Times reporters Kim Murphy and Eric Bailey both wrote
about scientific and not-so-scientific searches for the possibly mythical
man-beast.
A related problem: As no one has yet seen or captured or exhumed a Sasquatch
, many question whether Ketchum’s samples actually came from such an animal
. Ketchum’s statement did not describe where she got her DNA samples.
Ketchum said the work was currently undergoing peer review—the process by
which scientific journals vet research for publication—and that no further
details of the analysis would be revealed until the research was published.
Most scientists are hesitant to make judgments about research until data are
published. University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks, an expert on
human evolution, wrote on his blog that he was withholding judgment until
results were available. “No data, no discovery,” he wrote.
Judging on the basis of the information Ketchum and her team did release, at
least one skeptic argued that the little bit known about DNA sequencing
results didn’t necessarily indicate that an “unknown hominin” was
involved at all. At NeuroLogicaBlog, Yale neurologist Dr. Steven Novella
suggested that the samples that appeared to contain DNA from an unknown
hominin may rather be contaminated samples from plain old modern humans. “
The bottom line is this,” he wrote. “Human DNA plus some anomalies or
unknowns does not equal an impossible human-ape hybrid. It equals human DNA
plus some anomalies.”
The good news, for those curious about this, is that the chatter will
continue. In addition to Ketchum’s data, results should emerge from the
Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid project, led by University of
Oxfordgeneticist Bryan Sykes, which will conduct tests on hair samples
supplied by the public and said to come from Yetis, Bigfoots and the like.
Those results should appear in a peer-reviewed journal, the Associated Press
reported earlier this year.
Also, Ketchum may be planning to film a documentary and write a book about
her work, as this post details.
Bigfoot DNA? Not so fast, many say
http://www.trbimg.com/img-50b54dcc/turbine/la-sci-sn-sasquatch-
A Texas veterinarian-researcher claims to have shown that the elusive
creature known as Bigfootor Sasquatch is a human hybrid, descended from
human females who mated with males of “an unknown hominin species.” In a
statement released on Saturday, Melba S. Ketchum said that her conclusions
emerged after she sequenced samples of purported Sasquatch DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA in the samples, which offspring inherit from their mothers
, was identical to modern human mitochondrial DNA, she said. But the nuclear
DNA samples — the genetic blueprint that mixes genetic material from both
parents — appeared to be a mix between human nuclear DNA and “novel non-
human sequence.”
“Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern
human maternal ancestry,” Ketchum said in the statement.
But many others weren’t yet convinced. A few of their reasons:
This is Bigfoot we’re talking about, a creature that has never definitively
been observed, despite decades (centuries?) of reported sightings. Over the
years, Los Angeles Times reporters Kim Murphy and Eric Bailey both wrote
about scientific and not-so-scientific searches for the possibly mythical
man-beast.
A related problem: As no one has yet seen or captured or exhumed a Sasquatch
, many question whether Ketchum’s samples actually came from such an animal
. Ketchum’s statement did not describe where she got her DNA samples.
Ketchum said the work was currently undergoing peer review—the process by
which scientific journals vet research for publication—and that no further
details of the analysis would be revealed until the research was published.
Most scientists are hesitant to make judgments about research until data are
published. University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks, an expert on
human evolution, wrote on his blog that he was withholding judgment until
results were available. “No data, no discovery,” he wrote.
Judging on the basis of the information Ketchum and her team did release, at
least one skeptic argued that the little bit known about DNA sequencing
results didn’t necessarily indicate that an “unknown hominin” was
involved at all. At NeuroLogicaBlog, Yale neurologist Dr. Steven Novella
suggested that the samples that appeared to contain DNA from an unknown
hominin may rather be contaminated samples from plain old modern humans. “
The bottom line is this,” he wrote. “Human DNA plus some anomalies or
unknowns does not equal an impossible human-ape hybrid. It equals human DNA
plus some anomalies.”
The good news, for those curious about this, is that the chatter will
continue. In addition to Ketchum’s data, results should emerge from the
Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid project, led by University of
Oxfordgeneticist Bryan Sykes, which will conduct tests on hair samples
supplied by the public and said to come from Yetis, Bigfoots and the like.
Those results should appear in a peer-reviewed journal, the Associated Press
reported earlier this year.
Also, Ketchum may be planning to film a documentary and write a book about
her work, as this post details.
