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[norseman]

13 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Yeah, me too. I did email the scientist who did the DNA testing, but it was a while ago with no response. But it does go to show that lots of money still gets thrown at this  kind of investigation which is very encouraging, no? It first aired in 2018.

Its one thing to fake tracks along a lake in Oregon. It’s another thing entirely to fake tracks at 15000 feet in the Himalayas. Where our mountains end? Theirs are just beginning. And even locals are susceptible to altitude sickness.

[hiflier]

Good point. There's no question that planning and effort went into the production. I also think the eye opener for many who were familiar with the subject and were paying attention were amazed about being able to determine taxa from snow prints. That scientist is a reputed expert in that approach and, maybe you remember my mention, tracked a polar bear who was following a seal somewhere in northern Europe I believe it was. DNA from both animals were left in their snow imprints. It's stuff like this that keep me so positive about using the technology at least in the PacNW to track down out Hairy Friend. For the right people with the right funding, who got the right push, it shouldn't be all that hard. Like you say, it's not 15,000 feet onto a snowy mountain of plateau. And there wouldn't be a lot of foreign red tape to deal with either.

 

Even if only as dialogue for now, any discussion involving getting that technology to work for us should be considered progress. Because a year and a half ago it was simply not part of our equation for discovery. If I had a million bucks, most of it would go to that kind of research effort. That's how convinced I am of its potential success.

Edited February 2, 2021 by hiflier

[norseman]

13 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Good point. There's no question that planning and effort went into the production. I also think the eye opener for many who were familiar with the subject and were paying attention were amazed about being able to determine taxa from snow prints. That scientist is a reputed expert in that approach and, maybe you remember my mention, tracked a polar bear who was following a seal somewhere in northern Europe I believe it was. DNA from both animals were left in their snow imprints. It's stuff like this that keep me so positive about using the technology at least in the PacNW to track down out Hairy Friend. For the right people with the right funding, who got the right push, it shouldn't be all that hard. Like you say, it's not 15,000 feet onto a snowy mountain of plateau. And there wouldn't be a lot of foreign red tape to deal with either.

 

Even if only as dialogue for now, any discussion involving getting that technology to work for us should be considered progress. Because a year and a half ago it was simply not part of our equation for discovery. If I had a million bucks, most of it would go to that kind of research effort. That's how convinced I am of its potential success.

Svalbard Island in Norway.

 

But at the same time? You make a major expedition to 15000 ft. You take a DNA sample. It’s 99% Human. A chimp is 98.9% human. Or humans are 98.9% chimp. (Whichever way you wanna look at it) And so now we are back to square one. It would seem that the DNA sample isn’t getting to the right people. SOMEONE should be able to place a novel unknown primate sample on the tree of life.

 

1 percent sounds like it’s basically a human. But 1 percent is huge in comparing one great ape species to another. No one is going to confuse a Human for a Gorilla or a Gorilla with a Chimp.

 

 

[hiflier]

8 minutes ago, norseman said:

Svalbard Island in Norway.

 

But at the same time? You make a major expedition to 15000 ft. You take a DNA sample. It’s 99% Human. A chimp is 98.9% human. Or humans are 98.9% chimp. (Whichever way you wanna look at it) And so now we are back to square one. It would seem that the DNA sample isn’t getting to the right people. SOMEONE should be able to place a novel unknown primate sample on the tree of life.

 

1 percent sounds like it’s basically a human. But 1 percent is huge in comparing one great ape species to another. No one is going to confuse a Human for a Gorilla or a Gorilla with a Chimp.

 

 

 

Every word you say is true, Bud. But here's the thing , too: Bear isn't 98'9% Human, and there are no primates at 15,000 feet that I know of in Bhutan. I think the DNA sample IS getting to the right people, but those right people, like that DNA specialist, isn't going to make such an announcement on a NatGeo documentary that's been heavily edited, even if she knows the truth. Any geneticist worth their salt is going to at least give an opinion on what that 99% Human match signifies. So, like in that thread, Believer57 started, everything always ends up in our laps when it comes to being the ones to shove things ahead. Do we do so? Or not. I've been trying, it hasn't worked. But it isn't for not trying. It's the manner in which I'm trying. Something needs to change there. 

[norseman]

7 minutes ago, hiflier said:

 

Every word you say is true, Bud. But here's the thing , too: Bear isn't 98'9% Human, and there are no primates at 15,000 feet that I know of in Bhutan. I think the DNA sample IS getting to the right people, but those right people, like that DNA specialist, isn't going to make such an announcement on a NatGeo documentary that's been heavily edited, even if she knows the truth. Any geneticist worth their salt is going to at least give an opinion on what that 99% Human match signifies. So, like in that thread, Believer57 started, everything always ends up in our laps when it comes to being the ones to shove things ahead. Do we do so? Or not. I've been trying, it hasn't worked. But it isn't for not trying. It's the manner in which I'm trying. Something needs to change there. 

Humans are a primate. And they are at 15000 feet in Bhutan. They didn’t rule out human. A Yak herder could have been taking a bath. Or a Yeti could have got a drink. Either way? Without the tools to tease out the fine details? It’s virtually worthless in discovering NEW animals.
 

I still say if your packing a water pump and water samples off the mountain. And it contains Yeti DNA? You have a almost zero chance of discovering a new species. 
 

I hope that in the future this technology gets more accurate. It certainly holds promise. 

[Henry Stevens]

If a chimp is 98% human and tracks are found or other eDNA found that is 99% human, the only possible creature that would fit that bill is an australopithecine. 

[hiflier]

Here's the point of everything I've been saying about e-DNA and whether or not it's good enough as a technology to use for Sasquatch discovery. It's all about WHERE one applies it. In North America, there is only ONE primate on the loose: a Human. Anything else will be you-know-who. There is Human DNA in the GenBank. There are Great Ape genomes in the GenBank as well. And we have already studied Neanderthal, Denisovan, and other Homo species. For myself, I think there is enough total primate DNA available to notice something different- especially in NORTH AMERICA. In that respect this continent practically assures discovery as long as a program for sample extraction get initiated. It would be inevitable that if the Sasquatch is out there, it will show up in the test results from somewhere. The key lies in the number of primate candidates. On this continent anyway, there is only one, which is about as perfect a scenario as one could ever want. it's a process of eliminating that one species from the mix. What's left is.....

Edited February 2, 2021 by hiflier

[norseman]

26 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Here's the point of everything I've been saying about e-DNA and whether or not it's good enough as a technology to use for Sasquatch discovery. It's all about WHERE one applies it. In North America, there is only ONE primate on the loose: a Human. Anything else will be you-know-who. There is Human DNA in the GenBank. There are Great Ape genomes in the GenBank as well. And we have already studied Neanderthal, Denisovan, and other Homo species. For myself, I think there is enough total primate DNA available to notice something different- especially in NORTH AMERICA. In that respect this continent practically assures discovery as long as a program for sample extraction get initiated. It would be inevitable that if the Sasquatch is out there, it will show up in the test results from somewhere. The key lies in the number of primate candidates. On this continent anyway, there is only one, which is about as perfect a scenario as one could ever want. it's a process of eliminating that one species from the mix. What's left is.....

As we said. There is also only one known primate at 15000 ft in Bhutan as well. Same as North America.

Humans.

 

So with this technology are we doomed to just get incomplete Human DNA test results forever?

 

Without a physical specimen? They cannot do repeated DNA tests. Nor can they make determinations of morphology. Aka differences in its skeleton from a Human skeleton.

 

They are using eDNA as a blanket approach to detect known species. Which is awesome! But I think unfortunately for now its a dead end as we would like to see it be used.

1 hour ago, Henry Stevens said:

If a chimp is 98% human and tracks are found or other eDNA found that is 99% human, the only possible creature that would fit that bill is an australopithecine. 

Maybe. Or the sample is slightly degraded.

 

I agree that something like a bipedal Yeti must be somewhere between Humans and Chimps.

[hiflier]

33 minutes ago, norseman said:

Without a physical specimen? They cannot do repeated DNA tests. Nor can they make determinations of morphology. Aka differences in its skeleton from a Human skeleton.

My understanding is that for most species identification, geneticists use the barcode "cytochrome oxydase 1" (CO1, COX1, or COI- same thing). It has a fast mutation rate which means even closely related species can be differentiated from each other. And the good thing with CO1 is that it is in mitochondrial DNA fragments so one doesn't need a whole cell's nucleus to test for it. A degraded sample, of course, isn't much good to anyone. But if an area is active then the chances for getting intact samples would be better. Heck, other animals are easily detected, as are Humans. So I agree, having the right (qualified) person would be best and they need to be keenly aware of what they are looking for.

 

So how does this play into the topic here? Does it change the dynamic about who's responsible for finding Bigfoot? For instance, Dr. Disotell can take samples and test them and knows he's looking for results that could indicate a novel primate. Doe that, therefore, make him "responsible" for finding Bigfoot? He's the only one I know of who seems to be a one-package deal.

Edited February 2, 2021 by hiflier

[Henry Stevens]

Without a specimen the Denisovans were established as at least a sub-race.  I say this because we know know there are three kinds of Denisovans, D0, D1, and D2.  The first type is close to the Neanderthals and they only fall outside this three tiered Denisovan range but just a bit.  Without an actual holotype, no species designation can be made under current convention.

 

Unfortunately, Dr. Todd Disotell threw out all possible bigfoot samples after only doing mtDNA which came up human.  He went no further.  Now there is the possibility that bigfoot, in the New World, is a hybrid and the female line is Homo sapiens.  This same thing happened 330,000 years ago in an Out of Africa migration which resulted in all Neanderthal mtDNA being African and so separating the lineages between the Neanderthals and Denisovans.  It happened again when sapiens entered Europe 45,000 years ago.  Sapiens mtDNA completely replaced Neanderthal and Denisovan mtDNA.  And remember, Dr. Svante Paabo corrected our phylogeny when he actually went into Neanderthal and sapiens nuclear DNA and compared them.

[norseman]

28 minutes ago, Henry Stevens said:

Without a specimen the Denisovans were established as at least a sub-race.  I say this because we know know there are three kinds of Denisovans, D0, D1, and D2.  The first type is close to the Neanderthals and they only fall outside this three tiered Denisovan range but just a bit.  Without an actual holotype, no species designation can be made under current convention.

 

Unfortunately, Dr. Todd Disotell threw out all possible bigfoot samples after only doing mtDNA which came up human.  He went no further.  Now there is the possibility that bigfoot, in the New World, is a hybrid and the female line is Homo sapiens.  This same thing happened 330,000 years ago in an Out of Africa migration which resulted in all Neanderthal mtDNA being African and so separating the lineages between the Neanderthals and Denisovans.  It happened again when sapiens entered Europe 45,000 years ago.  Sapiens mtDNA completely replaced Neanderthal and Denisovan mtDNA.  And remember, Dr. Svante Paabo corrected our phylogeny when he actually went into Neanderthal and sapiens nuclear DNA and compared them.

We had a specimen with Denisovans. Finger bone. Rarely in Hominid fossils do we find fairly complete fossils.

 

With Yeti or Bigfoot having a piece of bone to draw repeated DNA samples from would be huge. It would be proof. 
 

Albeit it may not answer everything.

 

I do not believe Bigfoot is a hybrid of Homo Sapien women. Not based on its characteristics and observing the PGF.

[hiflier]

19 hours ago, norseman said:

They are using eDNA as a blanket approach to detect known species.

 

Thy should be using two approaches. One is metabarcoding which is used as a blanket approach for detecting ALL organisms present in DNA in a sample.Barcoding for  Cytochrome oxidase 1 is only used for determining closely related species. Both work with mitochondrial DNA, so a whole cell with a nucleus isn't needed. Mitochondrial DNA has many copies which is why it is the easiest to run. Nuclear DNA only has ONE copy, BUT if one has many whole cells in a sample then its better than having only one whole cell. The two, metabarcoding and cytochrome oxidase 1 are mutually exclusive and so cannot be run together as CO1 is a specifically targeted process.

 

And I agree. I, too, rule out a Human female in the mix. But I also can see where mitochondrial DNA, which is maternal, could be close enough to Human to say Human. It's why whole cells would be preferred so a paternal, as well as maternal, origins can be established.