Word: dna
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...only the Flores debate could be so clearly decided. The one definitive piece of evidence could be DNA tests of the original skeleton that might prove for sure whether the hobbit belonged to Homo sapiens or something else, but such samples will be difficult to recover, because DNA doesn't keep long in a tropical environment. What's certain is that the scientific stakes are extremely high: if the Flores find is really a separate species, then the history of human evolution will have to be rewritten. Instead of automatically evolving toward bigger brains, at least one branch of humanity...
Within a few weeks, I received my first results, from DNA Tribes. As I had guessed, the genetic indicators showed both European and American Indian roots. But No. 1 on the list of places I was supposed to be from was--to my great surprise --sub-Saharan Africa. What's more, No. 1 on the list of the top 10 regional populations with which I was most likely to share a piece of genetic code was Belorussia, followed closely by southeast Poland and Mozambique...
That's when I began to wonder whether there had been some kind of DNA mix-up. Fond as I am of stuffed cabbage, Poland and Belorussia are not places I had ever identified with. The sub-Saharan African connection was also puzzling. Any physical evidence of black Africa has apparently been diluted beyond recognition in my murky gene pool. And while heavy traces of African blood are not unusual in Latin America, they tend to be linked to West Africa, where much of the slave trade to the Americas originated. Clearly, my ancestors got around...
...fact, there were a lot of things the tests didn't tell me. Unlike a pregnancy test, with its emphatic yes or no, ancestral-DNA testing gives you only a "statistical likelihood" of membership in a certain group. I don't know how many generations ago those ethnicities appeared in my family tree, nor (without further tests) on which side. Moreover, the gene test hasn't been invented that can unravel the improbable chain of events that connected Belorussians with Mozambicans, and American Indians with Poles--ultimately to produce me, a Latina living and working in New York City...
After Karr is returned to the U.S. this week, prosecutors will move to run tests to see whether his DNA matches samples found under JonBenet's fingernails and in her underwear. If they match, all the questions about his credibility will drop to the floor. If they don't, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey will go back into the unsolved-mystery file. And so will the story of John Mark Karr...