The Ketchum Report

[Guest]

I'm referring to the later leak, that Sasquatch mtDNA is 100% human, but that the nuclear DNA is not. I know it's just a leak; I'm trying to understand what it will mean if true.

[Guest BFSleuth]

If the leaks are true I think it would mean that "X" number of years ago we had a common maternal ancestor, from thousands to millions of years ago. However, as MikeG has pointed out, the nuDNA is going to really define the species.

Bear in mind that most everything contained in the 178 pages of this thread are conjecture, speculation, cogitation, and agitation based on "leaks" from "inside sources" that may or may not be true.

[Guest slimwitless]

The simplest answer is the simplest answer: she spoke about the findings as she understood them at the time (assuming the report of what she said is accurate), but new data led her to modify her conclusions.

That's the only conclusion that makes sense. Otherwise, why would she even bother to distance herself from the copyright filings or Stubstad's revelations? Scientists are supposed to change their minds in light of new information, right?

I was going to add that her only posts to this forum were in reaction to Stubstad and later the copyright filings but a cursory search of her content only turns up the copyright post. Is there a time limit on the search? If so, that's unfortunate. There was a lot of interesting stuff posted back in the "heady" days of last summer.

[Guest]

Thanks, BFSleuth, that helps. And would this common maternal ancestor not also have to have been Homo sapiens sapiens, IF indeed the mtDNA is 100% modern human?

Edited May 16, 2012 by Christopher Noel

[Guest BFSleuth]

It may be that interbreeding at some point would create common mtDNA. Based on legends and stories of BF absconding with human females for breeding, that may have some truth to it.

[Guest]

I want to be careful so as not to be misunderstood here.

Mike cites Dawkins as saying:

Mitochondria......originally in ancient evolutionary history, were bacteria.......Two billion years ago the remote ancestors of mitochondria were free living bacteria. Together with bacteria of other kinds, they took up residence inside larger cells. The resulting community of bacteria became the large "eukaryotic" cell we call our own. ........... Mitochondria have their own DNA....(which) does not particiapte in sexual mixing, either with the main "nuclear" DNA of the body, or with the DNA of any other mitochondria. Mitochondria.....reproduce simply by dividing. Each "daughter" gets an identical copy of the original chromosone......Mitochonria is blessedly celibate. We get our mitochondria from our mother only, because sperms are too small to contain (any)

Now, one explanation would be that non, but near-human primates mated and/or are mating with modern HSS females, either presently or in the past recently enough that the mtDNA has not had time to significantly mutate so as to show a distinction..

That being said, the mating would not necessarily "produce" sasquatch, as you put it (though hybridization is a possibility since the genomes would appear to be compatible), but could also simply be sasquatch (the non-HSS gene line) with modern human mtDNA piggybacking as the result of the crossbreeding. That is, in the latter case, sasquatch DNA would always be the "dominant" or "expressed" line.

To use another example, let us consider lions and tigers. We know they can interbreed (because they have and have been). Now cross a male lion with a female tiger.

The possible combinations for the offspring are:

1. Lion predominate. The lion genes are the ones always expressed.
   
2. Tiger predominate. The tiger genes are the ones always expressed.
   
3. Hybridization. A mix of lion and tiger traits. The result is either the liger (majority lion traits) or the tigon (majority tiger traits). This is in fact what happens in the case of lions/tigers mating, but would not necessarily be the required result. Either 1 or 2 could have obtained.
   

Now, there is an alternate possibility, which I do not know if has been explored. MtDNA comes originally from bacteria. It is well known that certain bacteria have a predisposition for certain types of animals (viruses as well).

If, as my reading of the Dawkins quote the author is implying, mtDNA was/is/may be introduced into female reproductive cells (eggs) via bacterial infection, and the putative sasquatch is indeed close enough genetically to humans to interbreed with them, then it is possible that the same bacteria was naturally attracted to both sasquatch and HSS (us) and introduced into our populations at roughly the same time, hence their genetic (in the mtDNA sense) identical-ness.

In this last case, the mtDNA match does not imply interbreeding between sas and human, but still permits both to carry identical mt DNA.

There is no way at present to know which of the two theories (interbreeding or coincident acquisition based on genetic affinity).

And, as always, this implies that the "leaks" are correct in the first place regarding the mtDNA.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest]

So cool! This "dominant/expressed" aspect could also be more nuanced, perhaps--rather than all-or-nothing, Sas phenotype always dominating HSS--which would help explain why some Sas are reported to appear far more human-like, others far more gorilla-like.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Christopher Noel

[Guest]

^It could, if Theory 1 is correct as to how the mtDNA got there in the first place.

ETA: BFSleuth presented option 3 (which I forgot), BF and humans deviate from a common ancestor, hence similar mtDNA.

I would be interested to know if chimp or organg mtDNA is at all similar to ours.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest]

Apparently Neanderthal mtDNA is quite different from ours, so I'd presume chimp or orang mtDNA would be even more so.

[Guest MikeG]

Correct. Orang more different than chimp, given that our common ancestor with the orang was further back in time than our common ancestor with the chimp.

Mike

[JDL]

Ok, if our mtDNA has come down unchanged over many thousands of years from a single ancestor, but our nuDNA is more reflective of all of the interbreeding along the way, how much do our mtDNA and nuDNA vary in their essential characteristics, those that identify species?

If a bigfoot can share our mtDNA, but have different nuDNA, then it is possible for one to reflect one species and the other to reflect a second.

If the same mtDNA can be shared by multiple species, then we have to look at mtDNA not as an indicator of species, but of genus, or family.

[Guest]

In this case (again, assuming the leak is accurate), the multiple species would all have to share a common human matriarch, and I don't think that's in play, except in us and Sasquatch. But perhaps there will turn out to be multiple subspecies of Sasquatch, all of which share (with us) a common HSS ancestor.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Christopher Noel

[Guest]

If the father was a Neanderthal and the mother a early human the mtDNA would show human right ?

Just finished reading "Them and Us" and on a basic level it makes total sense.

[Guest]

Yes. And now that the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced (2010), such a long-ago paternity would be easily recognized by the Ketchum study.

[Guest]

In this case (again, assuming the leak is accurate), the multiple species would all have to share a common human matriarch, and I don't think that's in play, except in us and Sasquatch. But perhaps there will turn out to be multiple subspecies of Sasquatch, all of which share (with us) a common HSS ancestor.

It is vital to make a distinction at this point. It is one thing to say that the mtDNA comes from HSS (modern human, ie "us") and to say that the mtDNA comes from a single individual human.

mtDNA can be specific enough to identify two descendents of a single matriarchal line (for example, two people share the same great great great grandmother). That is not my understanding of what is being claimed about the sas mtDNA, but rather that it is in the human range (meaning that shared with humans in general, not a specific individua).

*edited because I quoted wrong post*

Edited May 16, 2012 by Mulder