We nearly bought the farm!
You will probably hear more about this in the next few days, but the minute I saw this it captured my attention!
Seems the human race nearly bought the farm about 70,000 years ago according to an extensive genetic study.
Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Geographic adviser, commented: "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."
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.
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 except generalities has been known about humans before that dispersal.
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, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations prior to the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.
Today more than 6 1/2 billion people inhabit the planet but we had better not get too complacent with these numbers since we nearly got wiped out as recently as 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis!
Your "pick me, pick me" scribe;
Allan W Janssen
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com
Seems the human race nearly bought the farm about 70,000 years ago according to an extensive genetic study.
"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."Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 70,000 years ago and the researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing us into small, isolated groups, which developed independently.
Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Geographic adviser, commented: "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."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.
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 except generalities has been known about humans before that dispersal.
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, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations prior to the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.
Today more than 6 1/2 billion people inhabit the planet but we had better not get too complacent with these numbers since we nearly got wiped out as recently as 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis!
Your "pick me, pick me" scribe;
Allan W Janssen
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com
Labels: extinction, humans
posted by Allan W Janssen | 2:52 p.m.
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