Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

[bkadoctaj]

From CNN.com:

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement.

"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."

Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA -- which is passed down through mothers -- have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.

The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.

The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations before the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.

Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago, and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups that developed independently.

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, said: "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?"

Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree DNA and Arizona Research Labs.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/24/c....ap/index.html

[ThePhantom]

That line is so cool.

"An epic drama written in our DNA."

And it makes a lot of sense too.

[enevitable]

Thats cool and all, except for the fact that the earth is 10,000 years old

[bkadoctaj]

Originally Posted by enevitable

Thats cool and all, except for the fact that the earth is 10,000 years old

Yeah, I doubt they consulted English-speaking biblical literalists.

[scoobydooby67]

and yet we're trying as hard as we can to wipe us out now.

[RaoulDuke]

That's the most perfect example of just how strong our desire to survive and propagate is..

[pavlakos]

was. seemingly not many people care about surviving anymore. theres knowledge of an upcoming cataclysmic event, but will people strive to survive? i doubt it.

[Liquidtruth]

Which cataclysmic event?

I do not doubt that people will strive to survive, as it were. The will to live is strong, and most people just do not sit back and accept death if they can help it.

[enevitable]

Originally Posted by Liquidtruth

Which cataclysmic event?

I do not doubt that people will strive to survive, as it were. The will to live is strong, and most people just do not sit back and accept death if they can help it.

I do like that site LT.

It's not a matter of IF the human race will die off. Its a matter of when.

[pavlakos]

lol, good point. there have certainly been too many doomsayers for anyone to take them seriously anymore, but i feel like 2012 has enough evidence to back itself up...at least 2-3 plausible theories.

[enevitable]

Originally Posted by pavlakos

lol, good point. there have certainly been too many doomsayers for anyone to take them seriously anymore, but i feel like 2012 has enough evidence to back itself up...at least 2-3 plausible theories.

I think the amount of theories associated with it show just how Pop Culture 2012 has become.

It had some historical context at one point, but I think all of that has been destroyed with the fantasy value that some people create in their minds because it sounds so cool.

[pavlakos]

certainly, i have to admit ive connected it to spirituality myself, but the most solid theory doesnt even have to do with that or nibiru, just the suns cycles of solar maximum and minimum. the sun is completing its 11 year cycle in guess when? sept 11, 20012. solar storms could knock out many communications by late 2010, and eventually lead to the pole flips and the earth spinning counterclockwise.

[blueend]

Originally Posted by enevitable

Thats cool and all, except for the fact that the earth is 10,000 years old

the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.,...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

[amsterdamage]

Originally Posted by blueend

the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.,...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

that's what they say,

big bang 13.7 billion years ago (bya)
solar system formed 12 bya
earth born 4.6 bya
surface cooled enough to solidify (oldest known rocks) 3.8 bya
life formed 3.5 bya [immediately after the first rocks formed!!!]
oxygen build up 2.2 bya (almost wiped out all life on earth!)
humans originated 200,000 years ago (ya)

It's amazing how quickly life formed after the surface of the earth was cool enough to solidify into rocks! The first fossils, dating 3.5 billion years are Cyanobacteria (aquatic, photosynthetic bacteria), these little suckers are still around today!! That's 3.5 billion years of continual existence!

At about 2.5 bya, after a billion years of Cyanobacteria releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, all life on earth was almost eradicated by the release of this oxygen. It plunged the earth into an ice age and killed off virtually every living creature on the planet.

Organisms, which had lived on earth without oxygen, could no longer exist ever since oxygen was added in the atmosphere. Because once oxygen intrudes in cells of their body, all the components start to dissolve by oxidization. In other words, for creatures, which did not have mitochondria, oxygen worked as a highly toxic substance.

Today all life on earth can trace its lineage back to those few microorganisms which survived the great dying of 2,500,000,000 BC.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=673
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanointro.html
http://www.ersdac.or.jp/Others/geoes..._text_05_e.htm

[gord420]

Originally Posted by scoobydooby67

and yet we're trying as hard as we can to wipe us out now.

Your right it does seem as though everyones trying to pollute this world as fast as they possibly can. If people would just stop doing shit all the time it would be alot more peaceful and cleaner.