quote:Scientists Find Gene That Controls Type of Earwax in People
By NICHOLAS WADE Published: January 30, 2006 Earwax may not play a prominent part in human history but at least a small role for it has now been found by a team of Japanese researchers.
Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of people have it, and the dry form among East Asians. The populations of South and Central Asia are roughly half and half. By comparing the DNA of Japanese with each type, the researchers were able to identify the gene that controls which type a person has, they report in today's issue of Nature Genetics.
They then found that the switch of a single DNA unit in the gene determines whether a person has wet or dry earwax. The gene's role seems to be to export substances out of the cells that secrete earwax. The single DNA change deactivates the gene and, without its contribution, a person has dry earwax.
The Japanese researchers, led by Kohichiro Yoshiura of Nagasaki University, then studied the gene in 33 ethnic groups around the world. Since the wet form is so common in Africa and in Europe, this was likely to have been the ancestral form before modern humans left Africa 50,000 years ago.
The dry form, the researchers say, presumably arose later in northern Asia, because they detected it almost universally in their tests of northern Han Chinese and Koreans. The dry form becomes less common in southern Asia, probably because the northerners with the dry earwax gene intermarried with southern Asians carrying the default wet earwax gene. The dry form is quite common in Native Americans, confirming other genetic evidence that their ancestors migrated across the Bering Strait from Siberia 15,000 years ago.
The Japanese team says that the gene that affects earwax, known to geneticists as the ATP-binding cassette C11 gene, lies with three other genes in a long stretch of DNA that has very little variation from one person to another. Lack of variation in a sequence of DNA units is often the signature of a new gene so important for survival that it has swept through the population, erasing all the previous variation that had accumulated in the course of evolution.
But earwax seems to have the very humble role of being no more than biological flypaper, preventing dust and insects from entering the ear. Since it seems unlikely that having wet or dry earwax could have made much difference to an individual's fitness, the earwax gene may have some other, more important function. Dr. Yoshiura and his colleagues suggest that the gene would have been favored because of its role in sweating.
They write that earwax type and armpit odor are correlated, since populations with dry earwax, such as those of East Asia, tend to sweat less and have little or no body odor, while the wet earwax populations of Africa and Europe sweat more and so may have more body odor. Several Asian features, like small nostrils, are conjectured to be adaptations to the cold. Less sweating, the Japanese authors suggest, may be another adaptation to the cold in which the ancestors of East Asian peoples are thought to have lived.
This article may be of some interest because of its references to migratory patterns. Nothing ground breaking -just bolsters much of what has already been discussed here; albeit from a novel perspective: earwax.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Osirion: What is strange is that American Indians have dry ear wax and not wet.
This supports the other data that currently suggests that the native Americans population consists of East Asian migrants. It's to bad they don't give any indication of when the dry wax gene may have mutated. Interestingly Europeans who also lived in very cold climates reatained the wet wax gene.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Osirion: What is strange is that American Indians have dry ear wax and not wet.
This supports the other data that currently suggests that the native Americans population consists of East Asian migrants. It's to bad they don't give any indication of when the dry wax gene may have mutated. Interestingly Europeans who also lived in very cold climates reatained the wet wax gene.
Clearly supports the Siberian bridge theory.
Posts: 4028 | From: NW USA | Registered: May 2005
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posted
What the earwax findings demonstrate is that there are a number of ways to slice the racial cake. After all, aren't East Asians and Europeans supposed to be genetically closer to each other than to Africans--who are usually seen in the context of "Africa and the Rest of the World".
The "sweating and odor speculation" is just that--speculation. Furthermore, East Asian nostrils are not particularly small--cf. skater Michelle Kwan and forensic sleuth Henry Lee--both on CNN international. It's always surprising that people are always looking for a way out--as in the case of the Japanese scientist speculator.
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quote:After all, aren't East Asians and Europeans supposed to be genetically closer to each other than to Africans-
They are, but phenotype does not reveal true lineage, and that is why phenotypically defined races are flawed.
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posted
So basically we have Somalians who are closer genetically to Bantu but are phenotypically closer to Englishmen?
Posts: 4028 | From: NW USA | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Most East African native groups, in terms of autosomal genetic distance are closest to other East Africans, for the Somali this means esp. the Oromo.
After that they are generally closest to other Africans North, West and South [depending upon the groups selected], then SouthWest Asians and Southern Europeans, then Northern Europeans, and lastly East Asians, Australians and Pacific Islanders.
Phenotypically, it depends upon what traits you measure - in skin color and limb ratio Somali are not distinguishable from other Elongated Black Africans.
Phenotype does not = *primarily nasal craniometry* as some Eurocentrics have attempted to foist off on the public.
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quote:Originally posted by osirion: So basically we have Somalians who are closer genetically to Bantu but are phenotypically closer to Englishmen?
Depends on what is being compared. For instance, you have E3b [genes] carrying individuals in Europe, who are genetically close to Somalis, and then you have skin tones, eye color and various other traits [phenotype] that would cluster Bantu speaking groups with Somali Cushitic speakers. E3b and E3a individuals are genetically closer to one another than they are to R or J carrying individuals, from the Y chromosome standpoint. It has to also be remembered that Somalis are tropically adapted, i.e., phenotypically, whereas an Englishman is not tropically adapted!
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quote:Supercar: E3b and E3a individuals are genetically closer to one another than they are to R or J carrying individuals, from the Y chromosome standpoint.
My fascination with genetics is inversely proportional to my understanding of it; I find genetics extremely fascinating. From the above statement would an R carrying man from Cameroon be closer genetically in some ways to an R carrying European since they share lineage?
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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My point about the supposed genetic proximity between Europeans and East Asians was just meant to be ironic. Just playing on the rabid racial theme expounded by fanatics of the Rushton variety.
To Calypso
That's a nice song you sang there re the man from the Cameroon. Just waiting for t he answers. It's like 3 people--1 black and 2 whites--on a boat afloat in the ocean and 1 white needs an immediate blood transfusion--they have the required e quipment--but only that white and the black share the same blood type. What does that prove?
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quote:Originally posted by osirion: Doesn't fit with the Kennewick man being a Caucasoid. This reconstruction looks just like Patrick Stewart!
Has it occured to you that this 'Patrick Stewart' look didn't just occur among Europeans??
Why not say the reverse-- that Patrick Stewart looks like Kennewick Man?!! After all, the latter is the much older one.
Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:From the above statement would an R carrying man from Cameroon be closer genetically in some ways to an R carrying European since they share lineage?
Yes, or and R carrying East Asian for that matter as they share a common, though very ancient, undifferentiated ancestor along their direct paternal line. On the other hand if you were to study them autosomally, they would likely show no particular affinities with one another.
The reality of human biohistory is one of overlapping lineages, which are the rule and not the exception.
This also lays waste to the notion of "race" as a lineage [which by the way is the operative definition used by some racialists], and with it, the twin rickety constructs of race purity, and race mixture.
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Doesn't fit with the Kennewick man being a Caucasoid. This reconstruction looks just like Patrick Stewart!
Has it occured to you that this 'Patrick Stewart' look didn't just occur among Europeans??
Why not say the reverse-- that Patrick Stewart looks like Kennewick Man?!! After all, the latter is the much older one.
I wonder if European templates for skin thickness have been applied here, as they are done with specimens from virtually everywhere else, including tropical Africans.
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posted
I don't know how many times I have to reinterate that reconstructions done by forensic anthropologist are not %100 percent. You have to use samples from both living and deceased individuals. Usually in the moderan era its done by either modeling with clay using the metrics of the crania or facial thickness specific to each ethnic group. Takes these factors into consideration when observing reconstructions.
The early peopling of the Americas is not something I have indepth knowleadge of but I believe they found Kennewick man was very close to the Aniu people of Japan? Anybody have further details on this?
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I don't find the reconstruction that controversial anyway. Some sleight changes to the design of the soft tissue around the eyes, and changes in his complexion and he would not look out of place among many North American native groups.
Europeans manage to see themselves in almost everything partly because their own phenotypes vary so much, which in turn is partly because they themselves are the product of varient indigenous and immigrant populations.
quote: Rasol: Yes, or and R carrying East Asian for that matter as they share a common, though very ancient, undifferentiated ancestor along their direct paternal line. On the other hand if you were to study them autosomally, they would likely show no particular affinities with one another.
The reality of human biohistory is one of overlapping lineages, which are the rule and not the exception.
This also lays waste to the notion of "race" as a lineage [which by the way is the operative definition used by some racialists], and with it, the twin rickety constructs of race purity, and race mixture.
Thanks for the response Rasol. It seems ironic that the ancients had it right when they viewed all mankind as one huge family having a recent common ancestry: lineage not race; something that we've had to re-learn in modern times. The Bible seems to have come very close with its catalogue of the sons of Ham in particular. The wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians was so renowned that I'm tempted to speculate or at least wonder out loud to what extent if any this ancient geneology might have been learnt from them?
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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That's a nice song you sang there re the man from the Cameroon. Just waiting for t he answers. It's like 3 people--1 black and 2 whites--on a boat afloat in the ocean and 1 white needs an immediate blood transfusion--they have the required e quipment--but only that white and the black share the same blood type. What does that prove?
Hi Lamin
I'm really an extraordinarily poor student of biology and I'm not versed in the significance of blood groupings. I am however going to guess that your paradox of the three men in the boat again demonstrates the superficiality of racial distinctions?
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Rasol: Yes, or and R carrying East Asian for that matter as they share a common, though very ancient, undifferentiated ancestor along their direct paternal line. On the other hand if you were to study them autosomally, they would likely show no particular affinities with one another.
The reality of human biohistory is one of overlapping lineages, which are the rule and not the exception.
This also lays waste to the notion of "race" as a lineage [which by the way is the operative definition used by some racialists], and with it, the twin rickety constructs of race purity, and race mixture.
Thanks for the response Rasol. It seems ironic that the ancients had it right when they viewed all mankind as one huge family having a recent common ancestry: lineage not race; something that we've had to re-learn in modern times. The Bible seems to have come very close with its catalogue of the sons of Ham in particular. The wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians was so renowned that I'm tempted to speculate or at least wonder out loud to what extent if any this ancient geneology might have been learnt from them?
I also find it ironic, that in many ways, the ancient Kemetians were more accurate about their ancestral origins than some modern Western scholarship, until very recently at least.
This shows us that superior tools are of little vallue if they are compromised by a lack of integrity.
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: I don't know how many times I have to reinterate that reconstructions done by forensic anthropologist are not %100 percent. You have to use samples from both living and deceased individuals. Usually in the moderan era its done by either modeling with clay using the metrics of the crania or facial thickness specific to each ethnic group. Takes these factors into consideration when observing reconstructions.
The early peopling of the Americas is not something I have indepth knowleadge of but I believe they found Kennewick man was very close to the Aniu people of Japan? Anybody have further details on this?
Actually I think Patrick Stewart probably has some Native American blood like many American Whites do. I also think a few superficial changes to the reconstruction and it would indeed look like an American Indian (more almond eyes, brownish red skin, etc).
I was actually being sarcastic by calling it Caucasoid.
Posts: 4028 | From: NW USA | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by osirion: Doesn't fit with the Kennewick man being a Caucasoid. This reconstruction looks just like Patrick Stewart!
Has it occured to you that this 'Patrick Stewart' look didn't just occur among Europeans??
Why not say the reverse-- that Patrick Stewart looks like Kennewick Man?!! After all, the latter is the much older one.
Of course that is the case. You should know when I am being sarcastic. I am sure Patrick Stewart has Native American blood - very common.
Question for you being that you are Asian: do you have dry or wet ear wax?
My first son has dry ear wax and my second one has wet. My first son looks very Asian like his mother but we haven't figured out what my second one is going to look like, I think he looks a bit more Middle Eastern looking like me.
Posts: 4028 | From: NW USA | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: The early peopling of the Americas is not something I have indepth knowleadge of but I believe they found Kennewick man was very close to the Aniu people of Japan? Anybody have further details on this?
All I know about the Ainu is that they are aboriginal to Japan and originally had "caucasian-like" features like pale skin, round eyes, brunette hair, and hairy bodies.
The remaining Ainu communities today live mostly in the northern island of Hokaido and Kurilin islands but they are heavily mixed with Japanese.
Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by osirion: Of course that is the case. You should know when I am being sarcastic. I am sure Patrick Stewart has Native American blood - very common.
Question for you being that you are Asian: do you have dry or wet ear wax?
My first son has dry ear wax and my second one has wet. My first son looks very Asian like his mother but we haven't figured out what my second one is going to look like, I think he looks a bit more Middle Eastern looking like me.
I thought Patrick Stewart is Scottish or British?! The point is you can't attribute certain features to a certain population alone.
LOL My earwax is usually dry but it gets wet whenever I've been in water like in the shower or in a pool.
Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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My earwax is usually dry but it gets wet whenever I've been in water like in the shower or in a pool.
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