[sci.bio] Human Evolution

mf@mrecvax.UUCP (Mauricio Fernandez) (08/30/88)

I'm interested in human evolution research but it's too little what
it's done. I'll do appreciate any information about which are the trends
in this area, what institutes are working on this and what readings are
suggested. 

Thanks in advance.


Daniela Tosto.
Department of Biologic Sciences.
University of Buenos Aires.

daniela@dcfcen.edu.ar  
or
uunet!atina!dcfcen!daniela

toms@ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider) (09/01/88)

In article <450@mrecvax.UUCP> daniela@dcfcen.edu.ar (Daniela Tosto) writes:
>I'm interested in human evolution research

Check out this reference, it's amazing:
R. L. Cann, M. Stoneking, and A. C. Wilson,
Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution,
Nature 325:31-36, 1987
 
Tom

jyamato@cory.Berkeley.EDU (YAMATO JON AYAO) (09/03/88)

In article <597@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> toms@ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider) writes:
>In article <450@mrecvax.UUCP> daniela@dcfcen.edu.ar (Daniela Tosto) writes:
>>I'm interested in human evolution research

>Check out this reference, it's amazing:
>R. L. Cann, M. Stoneking, and A. C. Wilson,
>Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution,
>Nature 325:31-36, 1987
 
>Tom

Also check out the controversy it generated, however--Wilson lab tends
to get a wee bit dogmatic about its findings, and you'll get a better
view of the situation if you read other people's contibutions too.

Summaries of this work in the popular press, where it is usually
referred to as "the Eve discovery", are pretty uniformly misleading.
It is worth pointing out that the discovery is of a common ancestor
for human mitochondrial DNA, not for human genes in general.  Evidence
is becoming available that several of the Human Leukocyte Antigen
alleles predate humankind, and that therefore there have always been
at least several humans in the line of descent for nuclear genes.

Mary Kuhner