Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Are You on the List?


What started out as a joke, turned out to be a great historical discovery about Genghis Khan. When Genghis Khan conquered territories he would tell his men to find the most beautiful woman and she would become one of his wives. This forced Genghis’ Y chromosome to be passed on for many years after and now 1 and every 200 men is a relative of Genghis. A huge group of central Asian population showed no differences between them and Genghis. Other advantages of Genghis Khan allow his Y chromosome to be passed on over and over again, mainly because he had multiple wives. Tyler-Smith said. “'There are only two ways a single Y chromosome can make such a mark on a population, The chromosome could in some way confer its owners with some biological advantage…[or] its original possessor had some incredible social advantage over other Y chromosome possessors, allowing its owner to pass it on….” So, check your DNA and see if your distant relative is the powerful Genghis Khan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/mar/02/science.research


Philippe A.
Period 3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was very interesting. By relating to the readers' lives, you made us think about if that could be us, if we could be related to the powerful Genghis Khan. It was intrguing to think about Genghis' motives for continuing his influence through the continuation of his genes.

Unknown said...

The fact that so many people could be related to just one man is simply astounding. Of course, if you were female than you would never really know if you were related, due to the lack of Y chromosome. There might even be more women related to him than men!

Alexandra said...

Wowzers he reminds of a Hugh Hefner from 1000 years ago! I think it's a possibility that my dad's related to him because both him and my mom are full Romanian, but for some reason he looks a little darker and more asiany than most Romanians. And since that country was invaded by the Mongols back in the day, this could be due to the fact that he has some Mongolian in him. I could be a descendant of Genghis Khan! Weirdd.