User talk:TimS/Mitochondrion

MItochondrial DNA

I run across this a lot in anthropology and linguistic pages when scientists use DNA to show how closely related two individuals are - and am left stumped about what the heck is going on. Does anyone know about this, and would you be willing to stick something in there about it? It seems it might be a useful topic when talking with YEC types.

As I understand it M-DNA is 99% passed through the female line (being outside the nucleus) & therefore allows maternal inheritance to be measured (?) almost 100% - or something.   ^Contribs_Talk 13:58, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

In very simple terms - and I may be talking bollocks - because Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down by the mother and doesn't get shuffled around with dad's DNA it mutates slower than other DNA. It's sort of possible to trace every change in Mitochondrial DNA since Eve so that you can identify which block of humanity someone comes from and trace the movements of homo sapiens. The results of this research are the matter of some debate - i.e. there's furious rows about what it all means - but it's possible to interpret the data to match the 'out of Africa' hypothesis. Of course, as we've only had 6000 years to move around and we originated in the Garden Of Eden and not Africa the hypothesis is 'only a theory' and subject to Liberal Deceit and Professor Values. Silver Sloth 14:03, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

That's my understanding as well - but isn't some of that at the end of the article?--Bob^{bing up} 14:04, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

Yup! - no harm in re-stating it though :-)   ^Contribs_Talk 14:11, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

Ahh, under "inheritance", i was looking under "mitochondrial DNA". If anyone cared, it could stand to be made as clear as SS just put it. :-) or not. I'm probably the only non-scientist in this group, since anti-fundi sites often draw people with strong science backgrounds! --WaitingforGodot 14:15, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

*Cough*. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 14:18, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, well, historians from "Strange and Foreign Lands" don't count. (j/k, if you couldn't tell).--WaitingforGodot 14:20, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

It's ok, I get that all the time. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 14:25, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

As ever The WP Article puts it far better than I can. Additionally this Science Daily article is quite interesting to those like me who are science fans, not specialists. I'm not sure it's going to convince any YEC types though. Silver Sloth 18:43, 22 July 2008 (EDT)

Originally bacteria

Way above my pay grade to write anything about this, but there may be room for mentioning the cross-baramin genesis of mitochondria as we now know them. Started out as endosymbiotic bacteria, didn't they? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Fun fact!

I dressed up as a mitochondrion for Halloween 2008. I got first prize in a competition with literal hundreds of contestants. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 14:08, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Conservacopy

95% of this is a copy of cp:Mitochondrion, ctrl-v'd here by TimS in May 2007. So why do we have it here? Sophie^{because liberals} 19:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Shrug. Тy^{communications wire} 19:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)