F Rosa Rubicondior: Rapid Human Evolution

Thursday 26 April 2012

Rapid Human Evolution

Fore People of Papua New Guinea.
A Novel Protective Prion Protein Variant that Colocalizes with Kuru Exposure, Mead et al, New England Journal of Medicine, Nov 2009.

Humans have been observed to evolve very rapidly in just 200 years, in one of the most clear-cut examples of human evolution.

Until the late 1950s the Fore people of Papua New Guinea had an unusual way of honouring their dead - they ate them, or more particularly, they ate their brains in a funeral ritual. This ritual meant that they caught kuru, a disease of the brain which killed some 2500 Fore before its cause was identified and the practice was stopped.

Kuru is caused by a prion and is invariably fatal. It is closely related to the prion which causes 'mad cow' disease in cows, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. These are also caused by eating brains and central nervous system tissues and was caused in humans in the UK when the government deregulated the animal feed industry, making it permissible for ground-up dead animals, including sheep which had died of scrapie, and even dead cows, to be fed to cattle and other farm animals. Scrapie crossed the species barrier to produce 'mad cow' disease, which then crossed the species barrier again to produce variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans, of which 166 people have so far died.

Kuru.
Researchers from the British prion research centre at University College, London examined the stored DNA from 152 Fore who died of kuru and compared it with the DNA of 3000 living Fore, 560 of whom had participated in the brain-eating funeral rituals before it was banned.

They found a mutation in 51 of the survivors and their descendants which was not found in a single victim of kuru. This mutation is in the gene which codes for the prion protein PRNP which, when it becomes deformed, causes other proteins to also become deformed, destroying the brain in a chain reaction which proceeds exponentially. The mutation appears to prevent the formation of disease-causing prions.

This mutation arose about 200 years ago by accident in a single individual and was inherited by his or her descendants so that, about 100 years ago when the kuru epidemic was at its height, there were just a couple of families who were carriers of the mutant gene. They and their descendants survived whilst many of the non-carriers died, so, under intense selection pressure, the frequency of the mutant allele increased hugely in the gene pool in just a few generations.

I hope it will become a textbook example of how evolution happens. It's a striking and timely example, given the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.

Simon Mead - one of the team of researchers
Interestingly, this example gives the lie to three Creationist assertions:
  1. Evolution doesn't happen.
  2. Mutations are always harmful.
  3. No new information can arise by mutation.

Here we see a beneficial mutation rapidly increasing in a population by a simple process of Darwinian evolution by natural selection. And of course we also see how environmental context gives meaning to a change in information in the genome. In the absence of kuru, the mutation would have been devoid of meaning.

Related articles:
Evolution Via Cannibalism: The Case Of Kuru (Science Life)
Kuru Field Studies in Papua New Guinea (MRC Prion Unit)
Gene Change In Cannibals Reveals Evolution In Action (New Scientist)




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9 comments :

  1. I'm not an evolutionary biologist but I can see how this discovery can open new understanding of the mechanisms of evolution.
    I don't know if it will it make Ken Ham's "News to Note" page but you can guess the reply can't you?
    "This is an example of 'microevolution' and does not prove that fish evolved into fruitbats."
    You can't reason with the irrational, no matter how strong your evidence.

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  2. Indeed. You can't prove that Ken Ham will evolve into an honest person either because there is no evidence of it ever happening.

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  3. The same for Duane Gish and the Willard [Romney]!
    Rosa,please vet if possible by Googling lamberth's naturalist arguments about God.I make explicit arguments for what's already is implicit in the naturalists literature.
    Aquinas, with his superfluity argument, kills his five ways- suggestions!Peter Inwagen is one of his on-line papers mentions it.
    Frankly, we atheologians rank higher than advanced theologians with their double-talk! They rank with paranormalists,albeit in high-sounding language!
    Lamberth's reduced animism argument argues that that is exactly what theism is as theism per the Coyne-Mayr-Lamberth teleonomic argument notes that as science finds no divine intent, then God is just as anyone of many spirits of full animism nothing, and so, theism lacks Him as intent just as much as full animism's spirits lack intent and so theism is just superstition and with its twin the paranormal the supernatural is what Paul Kurtz calls " The Transcendental Temptation," a must read book for skeptics.

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  4. Interesting. The author truly in spite of the words written believes in a great creator. He or she is frustrated because their tiny primate mind refuses to open up to multidimensional thinking and comprehension that is necessary to solve the equation. I will give the answer's so you don't have to give yourself a nose bleed k. Is there a god? Yes. Is there evolution? Yes. Then why do bad thing's happen to good people you ask (not that you care about other's really only your tiny little self). The answer is simple your species only learns by experiencing thing's first hand because you are selfish and self centered. Oh and by the way your not even really here, on earth as you see it. You humans are made of energy is the simplest way to put it as is everything you think you see. So if say you lose your legs (that don't exist) you learn empathy and understanding for someone who doesn't have legs along with countless other lessons. When you die (energy is re assimilated) you will at that point regain your full understanding of lessons learned from all past sessions of training to current. If you've more to learn you are placed back into human form/animal whatever the lesson requires.Your past memories are suspended (so you can experience an Unmolested learning experience and gain full understanding) as for physical mutation/evolution this is again part of a very great design. As the human or student progresses so does your abilities, physically, mentally and emotionally. Understand as well time is relative in nature. So your year's, lifetimes ( multiple) are quite short regardless of your perception. So instead of complaining and being frustrated learn your lessons and know everything from creation to evolution is to better your species. Ok goodnight little primate.

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  5. Your opinion isn't validated/valid or fact unless someone agrees with it? Oh poor little primate stop. How will you ever evolve with such foolish notions dancing around in your tiny little willfully ignorant brain? I think you are frighted is all. Scared of everything I would imagine. See just because someone thinks differently than you or is smarter/ has a better understanding of a subject you cannot even begin to comprehend does not give you the right to shun them simply because you choose to be ignorant and spread that ignorance to other's.

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    Replies
    1. Can anyone understand the gibberish posted by this understandably anonymous poster who seems to imagine he knows what's in my mind? Trying to show us the delusional nature of theophobic superstition, maybe?

      Delete
    2. I do not imagine primate. Your thoughts/feelings are completely transparent. I do find it interesting however that those within your species with lower intelligence seem to use a larger and more complex vocabulary in an apparent attempt to project superior intellect. We have found the the opposite to be true. Yes I suppose what I've posted would be construed as gibberish to you primate but this is understandable. Had I written the formula of the universal laws of physics (or what you're species believes is such) in mathematical formula on a black board and asked a 4 year old to tell me its meaning to it would seem to them like gibberish as well. Good point Rosa my apologies.

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    3. Ah! This one thinks he's a new species. That explains his gibberish, though still no idea what its all about.

      Aren't there any children of your own mental age you could try to impress?

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    4. Oh! Anonymous has deleted his account.

      Delete

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