I saw reports and someone told me that they had found proof of Yeti (bigfoot, Sasquatch, whatever) by sequencing its DNA. Non-science types should not analyze science data. The DNA was of a Bear subspecies that lived 40-120,000 years ago in the Himalayas. A weird group in Texas claims to have killed a bigfoot and sampled its DNA and says it is bear/human, which is totally bogus. (bigfootlunchgroup). Why these myths persist is beyond me. There are enough mysteries in biology, why do people have to invent creatures? If you talk to primitive tribes in Africa and South America they all have myths about creatures that only exist in their imagination. You would have thought Americans to have evolved further, but sadly our average education level is 33rd in the world, even though we have the best universities in the world, bar none. From the internet: The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is a staple of legend, mythology and mystery. An ape like creature, taller than a human, that inhabits the Himalayan region of Nepal or Tibet. The search to find the yeti can be traced back to Alexander the Great who demanded from villagers in the Indus Valley that he see one for himself. The villagers - even then - were unable to oblige. But now the ancient mystery of the yeti may have been solved, using the science of DNA. Despite being long thought of as a myth, a British scientist has concluded that the legendary creature may in fact be a sub-species of brown bear. Bear DNA is very far removed from primate and a 92% match with the dog. But even a 98% match, like that with homo sapien vs chimpanzee shows you that the 2% difference is huge. Our emotional and language parts of the brain are much more evolved. Tests on hair samples were found to have a genetic match with an ancient polar bear, with scientists believing there could be a sub species of brown bear in the High Himalayas that has long been mistaken for the mythical beast. Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes set out to collect and test yeti hair samples to find out which species they came from. In particular he analyzed hairs from two unknown animals, one found in the Western Himalayan region of Ladakh and the other from Bhutan, 800 miles to the east. The myth of the yeti is thought to have originated in Tibet and spread throughout the region along the trade routes to Nepal via the Sherpa. However, mystery primates are recorded on every continent on earth, with the exception of Antarctica. After subjecting the hairs to the most advanced DNA tests available and comparing the results to other animals genomes stored on the GenBank database, Professor Sykes found that he had a 100% match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back at least 40,000 years - and probably around 120,000 years - a time when the polar bear and closely related brown bear were separating as different species.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 20:53:10 +0000