Genes of history's greatest lover found? (1 Viewer)

[Max Leung]

I love the title of the article:

Genes of history's greatest lover found?

In over 90 percent of the Asian men tested, the Y-chromosomes were quite diverse, indicating a multiplicity of paternal-line ancestors in their highly varied family trees. In striking contrast, 8 percent had Y-chromosomes that were virtually identical, indicating a common recent forefather.

This individual man's Y-chromosome is today found in an estimated 16 million of his male line progeny in a vast swath of Asia from Manchuria near the Sea of Japan to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in Central Asia. That's one of every 200 males on Earth today.

The article speculates that it may have been Genghis Khan or his siblings/close relatives that could account for the widespread DNA. Spreading the seed far and wide and all that.

Pretty heady stuff. I may have some of these "killer" genes heh.

 

[RobertR]

Max, you need to get busy and, er, hold up the reputation of your prospective genetic heritage.

Interesting quote attributed to Genghis Khan here:

"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."

It's the obvious source for a very similar line spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Cochran pointed out, "In Genghis Khan's time, promiscuity wasn't as dangerous because syphilis wasn't known in Eurasia until 1493

Must have been nice!

 

[RobertR]

In Genghis Khan's time, promiscuity wasn't as dangerous because syphilis wasn't known in Eurasia until 1493

Of course, these days, poor old Genghis would lose almost all his loot to the ENORMOUS number of paternity suits that would be filed.

 

[CharlesD]

When I saw title of this thread, I thought that someone had stolen my DNA!

 

[Max Leung]

The New York Times covers the story too: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/science/11KHAN.html

I'd love to go out and conquer the world and all that, but first I need a successful IPO to raise the necessary funds to buy all the horses, make the pointy sticks, and hire the corporate harem concubine. Dividends will be payed out quarterly in the form of nubile young virgins that me and my henchmen overlooked during our rigorous profit-taking.

Unfortunately, this is not possible in the current economic climate. I may have to seek 100% private funding to finance this venture, but that will be years away. A shame really, as I really think you'd be impressed with the business plan that we (I can't tell you who the other interested parties at the moment) were planning to submit to the Security Exchange Commission.

 

[RobertR]

Here's an article with some interesting speculation on how Genghis Khan really died:

http://www.bootsnall.com/cgi-bin/gt/...wctan/63.shtml

Yikes!

 

[Max Leung]

Hey, at least he sired many descendants beforehand. And he died doing what he always did best!

Ah, the good old days...they were great!

 

[andrew markworthy]

"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."

A bit off-topic, but I've always longed to have a job interview where someone asks 'what do you enjoy most about university lecturing?' so I could come out with that quote (in a bad German accent).

Sorry Max, not trying to deflect this thread, which is a good one.

I think it's perhaps worth noting that given the geometric increase in numbers across generations, the chances that any two people within a particular 'race' are related within recent history are very high. I think it was Richard Dawkins who calculated (or at least he quotes the figures in one of his books) that you only have to go back to circa 1760 on average to find a common ancestor for any two people of the same skin colour on this planet.

I find this mind-boggling - almost as good as the statistic that you can link yourself to anyone else on the planet through an average of only 7 mutual acquaintances.

 

[Cees Alons]

...of history's greatest lover ...

"Lover" may not be the proper word, actually... "shagger"?

Cees

 

[clayton b]

Heh, good link, thanks.

 

[Max Leung]

I love it when science and history converge like this...

That NYTimes article implied that some Mongols know where the Khan is buried, even today. I hope that is true. Then we can send Alec Baldwin over before the evil villain revives the Khan and takes over the world again!

It's gonna take some adjusting. I never felt comfortable wearing fur hats and a stirrup (and horses stink! Ewwwwww). And I'm lactose intolerant: the Mongol herdsmen would laugh at me if they found it! I better stock up on arrows and lactose pills.

The Conan movie had a heck of a lot of inspiration from the Mongols. Just look at the cast and the costumes!

 

[Allen_Appel]

you can link yourself to anyone else on the planet through an average of only 7 mutual acquaintances

This is known as "Six Degrees of Separation" or the "Small World Phenomenon". Stanley Milgram's 1967 experiment "proving" this theory uses highly suspect methodology and is discredited by mathemeticians today. The original postulation was only for Americans to be connected closely, but it has entered the popular culture that it is worldwide.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Allen, having said that, my wife when an undergraduate took part in a replication study, and they found an average of (I think) 8.1 (which is still pretty damn impressive). I think it depends how good people are at targetting likely mutual links and also how good the instructions are to the next links in the chain. However, I agree - social psychologists aren't necessarily good at maths!

 

[Allen_Appel]

What study was your wife part of? I know there was one which attempted to use the Internet and email to further refine Milgram's experiment, but that was also flawed, in that computer users are already a unique subset of the population.