The Ketchum Report

[Guest Theagenes]

As I said in an earlier post, Bill Dranginis snagged putative Sasquatch hair samples with lice sometime around 2007 IIRC.

He could not elaborate on whether it was something he had totally investigated last I asked on a private Facebook page.

He's a member here and could probably tell you more.

Ah, I though you meant he had followed up the H. erectus lice study through research. I didn't realize you meant he had a specimen. That could potentially be your smoking gun there and should definitely be followed up on if it hasn't already. This Paul Green at UF (the lice DNA guy) seems to be somewhat open-minded and might be wroth contacting, particularly if the Sykes and MK reports indicate a new extant hominin or primate. If the hair that the louse came from was tested in one of those studies that would be even better.

^^^^ There was some discussion on this before. The Sierra steak might have been a good source but Smeja claims to have salted the sample and I don't know if that process would clear any remaining from the flesh or not. Melba claims not have any data on the age of the unknown so I am to assume that louse recovery was not attempted or successful.

That was my first thought, but then I remembered it was supposedly left in situ for a week or two after the incident. Lice need a live host and would have abandoned the body within 24 hours (according to one of those articles posted earlier). Now that's assuming his story is true. If there IS lice on the steak, then there is a problem with the story of how it was recovered.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Theagenes

[Guest]

^^ Since molting is part of the lice life cycle, is it plausable that DNA could be recovered from the remaining exoskeleton?

Edited December 11, 2012 by HODS

[See-Te-Cah NC]

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[Guest Theagenes]

Alright game on. Back to the discussion. All of the talk about lice and hominins interbreeding, and whatnot, is important and relevent as it attempts to create a context for the hybridization event that MK has proposed. Everyone seems to have fixated on this event and many people, including possibly MK herself, seem to be misunderstanding what this means.

As I just mentioned in a PM, her choice of wording in calling BF a "hybrid" is a big part of the problem and people are focusing on that. Assuming her results are what they say they are, then BF is NOT a hybrid. BF has a BF-human hybrid ancestor way back in his/her family tree, just as Europeans have a Neanderthal-human hybrid ancestor in their family tree. But her use of the term hybrid is leading some proponents to throw out Zecharia Sitchin references about Nefilhim and some skeptics to mock her as though she's proposing a scenario out of a Burroughs or Haggard novel about humans and apes crossbreeding to produce a lost tribe of ape-men. But that's not what her results mean (again assuming they're accurate). They indicate that BF is a another hominin that seems to have exchanged some genetic material with modern humans way back in the day, just like we know happened with other hominins.

What I've been trying to show is that this proposed hybrization event ca. 15K BP is the least unusual part of her statement. It actually fits in fairly well with what we have been learning about modern humans and their interactions with other hominins over the last couple of years. It's getting from this proposed hybridization event to a modern day NA bigfoot that becomes more problematic.

[Guest BFSleuth]

Thank you to the staff members that volunteer your time!

I was reading Dr. Ketchum's FB page and noticed the following exchange:

Question: "Are you talking about the DNA analysis?"

Melba Ketchum: "Yes."

Question: "You finished it?"

Melba Ketchum: "For the first paper, yes."

Question: "How much more do you have to go?"

Melba Ketchum: "Genomes take years of bioinformatics."

For more about bioinformatics click here. It seems like the long awaited paper will be the first paper in a potential series. She noted that she has over three terabytes of data.

What I've been trying to show is that this proposed hybrization event ca. 15K BP is the least unusual part of her statement. It actually fits in fairly well with what we have been learning about modern humans and their interactions with other hominins over the last couple of years. It's getting from this proposed hybridization event to a modern day NA bigfoot that becomes more problematic.

This seems to be the most cogent analysis of the situation IMHO. I don't see BF as being a result of a hybridization event any more than homo sapiens sapiens is the result of hybridization events. I would think that every hominin had cross breeding events going on repeatedly during the course of time, with exchanges of genes adding to the gene pool of each species. However, I think each species remained largely genetically intact.

The first question I will have when the paper is published will be to examine how closely the mtDNA relates to HSS and whether Neanderthal or Denisovan mtDNA is similarly related. Based on her press release she makes it seem that the mtDNA is 100% HSS (albeit from 15000 years ago), is that the case for Neanderthal DNA (or do we know)?

[Guest Theagenes]

As I mentioned earlier, I lean toward the skeptical side, but I'm very much intrigued by these DNA studies and I would love for them to add to our knowledge of human origins. If she can show that there is a living hominin other than us i think that would be the coolest thing ever. Rather than try and debunk MK or attack her for her *cough* unconventional encounter comments, I'd prefer to try and see if I can create a model in which her proposed results (or what we know of them) are possible. Yes, we could hold off speculating until the final results are in, but that's not as fun. Besides I'm learning new things from this discussion.

So on that note let me throw out a hypothetical model that may fit with what MK seems to be proposing.

Sometime around 600-500K BP a group of H. heidelbergensis-type hominins migrates out of Africa and into the middle east and SW Asia. By about 300K BP their lice has evolved into Type B. Some of them migrate into Europe and become Neanderthals. Others move into Central Asia and become the Denisovans. A third hypothetical group continues on and settles in NE Asia. Due to environmental conditions, this last group begins change morphologically, becoming hairier and taller. For the purpose of this hypothetical model, let's call them Homo hirsutus.

Meanwhile, in Africa, modern humans have evolved and begin migrating out around 100-60K. Some move into Europe where they exchange genetic material with Neanderthal and pick up Type B lice. these are the ancestors of modern Europeans. Another group moves through Central Asia around 50-40K BP on their way to SE Asia and Australia. They exchange DNA with Denisovans along the way and pick up Type B lice. Another group of modern humans eventually make into NE Asia around 15K BP where they encounter H. hirsutus. They exchange genetic material and pick up type B lice. Then taking advantage of the land bridge and ice free corridor they move into North America. H. hirsutus does as well, maybe even driven by pressure from the modern humans. Now if the all of the female H. hirsutus that make the move into N. America have the human mtDNA, then so should all of their descendents (is that right CTfoot?). Homo hirsutus continues to evolve in NA getting hairier and taller and losing some of their cultural knowledge due to isolation, but they survive and their descendents are BF.

So my question to CTfoot or GeneRUS, would this scenario fit with what MK seems to be saying her results are?

[Guest slimwitless]

^^^^ There was some discussion on this before. The Sierra steak might have been a good source but Smeja claims to have salted the sample and I don't know if that process would clear any remaining from the flesh or not. Melba claims not have any data on the age of the unknown so I am to assume that louse recovery was not attempted or successful.

Smeja only salted a small piece that he brought to the "recovery" expedition. It was intended for use with a cadaver dog. Someone (Meldrum?) was allowed to keep the piece and may have even tried to get DNA from it (see comments by the mysterious Ginger in the Henner Fahrenbach thread many months back).

The rest of Smeja's sample is supposedly frozen in a block of ice.

[southernyahoo]

Alright game on. Back to the discussion. All of the talk about lice and hominins interbreeding, and whatnot, is important and relevent as it attempts to create a context for the hybridization event that MK has proposed. Everyone seems to have fixated on this event and many people, including possibly MK herself, seem to be misunderstanding what this means.

As I just mentioned in a PM, her choice of wording in calling BF a "hybrid" is a big part of the problem and people are focusing on that. Assuming her results are what they say they are, then BF is NOT a hybrid. BF has a BF-human hybrid ancestor way back in his/her family tree, just as Europeans have a Neanderthal-human hybrid ancestor in their family tree. But her use of the term hybrid is leading some proponents to throw out Zecharia Sitchin references about Nefilhim and some skeptics to mock her as though she's proposing a scenario out of a Burroughs or Haggard novel about humans and apes crossbreeding to produce a lost tribe of ape-men. But that's not what her results mean (again assuming they're accurate). They indicate that BF is a another hominin that seems to have exchanged some genetic material with modern humans way back in the day, just like we know happened with other hominins.

What I've been trying to show is that this proposed hybrization event ca. 15K BP is the least unusual part of her statement. It actually fits in fairly well with what we have been learning about modern humans and their interactions with other hominins over the last couple of years. It's getting from this proposed hybridization event to a modern day NA bigfoot that becomes more problematic.

Theagenes, Might it be possible that the mosaic described in the nuDNA would give an estimate back to the hybridization event by evaluating how much recombination is there? Without the data, it might be premature to think that the hybridization event isn't something that has persisted. If it happened 15k ybp it could still happen. That would be disturbing potentially.

[Guest VioletX]

I found this:

http://www.talkorigi...homs/mtDNA.html

Krings et al. then compared this sequence against a database of 994 different mtDNA sequences from modern humans. For the sequence of mtDNA in question, humans on average differ from each other in 8 +/- 3.1 positions (the '3.1' represents one standard deviation). The greatest difference between any two modern humans was 24, and the smallest difference was 1 (because duplicates were removed from the database).

Distributions of Pairwise Sequence Differences among Humans, the Neandertal, and Chimpanzees.

X axis, the number of sequence differences; Y axis, the percent of pairwise comparisons. (Krings et al, 1997)

By contrast, the Neandertal genome had an average of 27 +/- 2.2 differences from modern humans (3.375 times the average difference between modern humans). The smallest difference between any human and the Neandertal was 22, and the largest difference between any human and the Neandertal was 36. These differences put the Neandertal genome well outside the limits of modern humans. Another interesting result is that the mtDNA sequence seemed equally distant from all modern groups of humans. In particular, it did not seem to be more closely related to Europeans, something that might have been expected if, as some scientists think, Neandertals were at least partly ancestral to them.

In 1999, the same workers successfully extracted a second sequence of 340 base pairs of mtDNA from the same Neandertal fossil (Krings et al. 1999). This study confirmed the results of the first. When differences were calculated between the 600 comparable base pairs of 663 modern humans, the Neandertal, and 9 chimpanzees, modern humans differed from each other by 10.9 +/- 5.1 (range 1-35), the Neandertal differed from humans by 35.3 +/- 2.3 (range 29-43), and humans and the two Neandertals both differed from chimps by about 94.

Edited December 11, 2012 by kbhunter

[Guest BFSleuth]

^ resizing your font would be helpful...

I am most interested to see how closely related the mtDNA is to human mtDNA or to Neanderthal mtDNA.

[Guest VioletX]

Didn't Dr K say in her interview that the mtDNA was 100 % modern human?

[kbhunter]

^ resizing your font would be helpful...

I am most interested to see how closely related the mtDNA is to human mtDNA or to Neanderthal mtDNA.

Font resized.

KB

[Guest]

Forget it. You are just not picking up on my attempt at humor.

I got you. That was pretty funny, by the way.

What he is saying is that all girls synched up, are subsequently out of commission, and the guys are all upset because there will be no action for a few days, thus drowining their frustrations in alcohol. If only genetics was as easy to follow. lol

[Guest LAL]

@Violet. Yes. 3:18:

Edited December 11, 2012 by LAL

[Guest BFSleuth]

Didn't Dr K say in her interview that the mtDNA was 100 % modern human?

I haven't listened to her latest interview. In her press release it says, "The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species."

This is what is puzzling to me, that Neanderthal mtDNA might be further from human than sasquatch mtDNA, while the nDNA of sasquatch might be further from human than Neanderthal nDNA (if I am reading the tea leaves correctly).

Font resized.

Thank you! I've noticed that sometimes when I copy and paste from other web sites the font will be tiny, and I need to edit my post while I can...