As we come to an end to this course, I reflect back on the content taught to us from materials on genetic and gene flow to genus hominid, how all of the content can help us connect our every so changing human kind, it can help us traverse, given information about early ancestor remains. Some of the ways in which humans will continue to evolve, are gene flow, which would be affected by facilitating and movement of people and genes, for example immigrants and refugees, their migration pattern illustrates the future of gene flow and diversity. Next one is genetic drift, which defines drift or non existence of a species. Another one is natural selection, which is nature’s way of deciding, the survival factor of a particular species, there are many variables to natural selection is differential reproduction, which can act on different traits in different environments as referred to the lecture and scientist. Finally mutation are another cause of evolution. Some of the ways in which humans have evolved from our ancestors are biological, behavioral, environmental and cultural traits a few of these traits, Lactose intolerance is commonly known evolved trait, that is related to enzyme that breaks down lactose, a type of sugar commonly found in dairy products, which when not present in the body, it can cause many gastrointestinal tract discomfort and other negative effects. Next one is with regards to the blue eye gene, while blue eyes were rare back in early human ancestor days, but in modern days that are quite common. Evolvunary story behind the advancement of blue eyed gene derived from a mutation single ancestor 6,00-10,000 years ago, the mutation affects the OCA2 gene, which codes the protein necessary for producing melanin, which gives our skin, hair and eyes their color according to the University of Copenhagen. What the mutation does is that it essentially switches off the ability to have brown eyes by limiting the melanin produced in the iris, and diluting the eye color from brown to blue. While lighter eyes doesn’t give people any survival advantage, but because the gene for this mutation utilizes the some way as a recessive trait. Popularity gains for the blue eye gene is yet to be seen, similar to the blue gene their is another underrated evolved human trait is called, shrinking brains. Shrinking of the brain is another trait affected by evolution, while they may not be popular because of fear of shrinking brains, might related to loss of intellect. While shrinking has been going on for 20,000 years, we are not losing intellect or our creative ability, human relies more on the struce of society to help us get by, according to the article discussing changes in modern human traits that where present in our ancestors. The cats and dogs that are domesticated, have the same process happening to their brains, which some scientists think makes us peaceful animals. These are just some of the ancestors traits that as modern humans evolved through gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection and mutations, the traits will evolve as well.
References: Business Insider Article – https://www.businessinsider.com/recent-human-evolution-traits-2016-8#3-blue-eyes-3
University of Copenhagen:
https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2008/blue-eyes/
Bhargavi,
I really liked what you had to say in this last blog post for the final week of our class. It seems like you were able to retain a lot of information we were taught and put your own knowledge and experience into that – so thank you for sharing! I find it cool that you mentioned how gene flow is affected by immigrants and refugees. That is such a trending and current topic and I wonder if some people considered how these migration patterns could eventually benefit humankind as a whole if their thoughts about it would change. Another thing you talked about that stuck out to me was lactose intolerance. I find it almost funny that a lot of people are lactose intolerant but we have foods now like ice cream that we created that are too irresistible to give up!
First and foremost, excellent post in terms of what you can do with it.
Pale eyes and lactose intolerance two things. These two things prior to this class make these things and many other parts of the human experience more fascinating to me. These are things that although seemingly small are a microcosm of a larger and more fascinating process in that of evolution.
There are parts of this post that may have not been intentional. The scale of your post goes from things that we take lightly in one’s everyday life. So as elucidated further in the previous paragraph, these are aspects of a much more fascinating ongoing aspect of science. That is true and all-encompassing from a species aspect, in the most visceral way.
The scope of this paper not being fixated on the end of the world and what we as humans must do to combat climate change is somewhat refreshing. It is refreshing in this sense it sticks to the course content it is fundamentally sound. It is on prompt. It is intelligent not hyperbolic and nor is it trite and generic. You wrote an excellent post and you should be proud of yourself.
Patrick Ruch