Human Origins and evolution

Marquia James

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Human Origins

The first primates were rodent like insectivores that lived about 60 million years ago.

Aegyptopithecus and Dryopithecus were the first primates to walk upright.

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Hominines

They believe hominines are ancestral to humans only.

Lived between 19-20 million years ago.

They were more upright and had smaller brains than their ancestors.

-Modern humans appeared about 40,000 years ago.

-culture was apparent by 14,000 years ago.

Molecular Evolution

Molecular evolution considers differences at genome, chromosome, protein, or DNA sequence levels with the mutation rates to species relatedness.

Humans and chimps share 98.7% of their protein gene sequence.

http://tigrepelvar2.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/what-makes-us-human_1.jpg

Molecular Evolution contin…

Single genes and differences in gene expression can account for great distinctions between humans and chimps.

The human genome shows many signs of past duplication.

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Molecular clocks

Gene sequence information from several species may be used to construct evolutionary tree diagrams.

A molecular clock is based on the known mutation rate of the gene applied.

Molecular clocks contin…

Molecular clock selects the evolutionary trees requiring the fewest mutations, which is therefore the most likely.

http://www.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/bshapiro/spiral-clock.jpg

mtDNA

Molecular clocks are based on mtDNA data, which is used to study human origins and expansions.

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Eugenics

Eugenics is the control of individual

reproduction to serve a societal goal.

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Positive and Negative Eugenics

According to the British Medical Journal Positive and negative eugenics are two pronged programs that would increase the frequency of “socially good” genes in the population and decreases the “bad genes.”

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Some aspects of genetic technology affect reproductive choices and allele frequencies, but the goal is to alleviate or prevent suffering, not to change society.

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References

Kevels, Daniel, 1999, Eugenetcs and Human rights, British Medical Journal, 319(7207): 435–438.

Lewis, Ricki, 2008, Human Genetics concepts and Applications. Mc-Graw Hill, New York, 442.