Thursday, September 30, 2004

Here's Something to Boggle the Mind !

Now THIS is truly amazing! (via Captain Ed )

Everyone in the world is descended from a single person who lived around 3,500 years ago, according to a new study. Scientists have worked out the most recent common ancestor of all six billion people alive today probably dwelt in eastern Asia around 1,415BC. ...
Using a computer model, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology attempted to trace back the most recent common ancestor using estimated patterns of migration throughout history.
They calculated that the ancestor's location in eastern Asia allowed his or her descendants to spread to Europe, Asia, remote Pacific Islands and the Americas. Going back a few thousand years more, the researchers found a time when a large fraction of people in the world were the common ancestors of everybody alive today - while the rest were ancestors of no one alive. That date was 5,353BC, the team reports in Nature.


The Captain speculates on the Biblical implications of this, which are interesting enough; but the overall implications are staggering! That we could be related to EVERYONE currently on Earth by only 200 generations just boggles the mind!

3 comments:

Dom said...

Well.. Well..It is quite funny and interesting to know that we would be all related to each other...

May be this thought would solve most of the problems that people face in accepting each other.

Why do we fight? - we all are related and are one community !!!

Thanks for this boggling fact !!

Dom

Anonymous said...

Your right! That is incredible.

Anonymous said...

If we are all descended from a single person, how did he/she do it?