Humans Evolve – Fast!

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:

Transcript

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:


Some scientists contend modern culture and conveniences have basically halted human
evolution. But anthropologist John Hawks says that’s not so. He’s been analyzing data
from an international gene-cataloguing study. He says many genes have rapidly changed
within the last 5-thousand years. For example, Hawks says one positive development is
that humans have more genes that fight off some diseases:


“Things that resist malaria, things that resist smallpox, things that are resistant to new
diseases that have emerged in the last 10,000 years.”


Hawks says there have also been changes related to what some groups can eat and drink,
for example, many northern Europeans can now drink milk their whole lives. The study
of genetic change is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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