Sasquatch "Nest" Question

[hiflier]

How about a little science here. Most of us, if not all of us, know about these discoveries found in Washington state and most of the story behind both finds. The find in May of 2015 or so, and the other in the same area in February of 2020. DNA samples were extracted from under the centers of some of the structures in the first discovery and sent off to be tested. And that's where my question lies. And it is: How is it that a novel primate wasn't discovered in the sample results? I've thought about this a lot during my self-imposed DNA technology education. My conclusion is that I don't understand one bit how a novel primate, if that's what constructed these nests, got missed. Because there were MORE than just one soil sample collected at the site.

 

Maybe a little background would help clarify my confusion after critically thinking about those test outcomes over these past couple of years.

 

Important flashback: Dr. Mireya Mayor, 2020: a large wooden stick/tree structure was found in a forested are of eastern Kentucky. A soil sample was taken, THREE actually, and tested at either UCLA or UC Santa Cruz. Nothing as far as I know was SPECIFICALLY targeted in the way of a particular species, so the testing was done as high throughput, next generation sequencing. In other words, metabarcoding lab protocol which will put out data from the samples on every organism it detects that has a genome in GenBank. Those samples were reported to have Chimp DNA in them, though more samples were needed to support that out come. Have more been taken from the site since then? Don't know. All I know is that good samples, which apparently they were, would be able to show differences in genus- which they did as per the UC lab's disclaimer on what it could detect.

 

Break time.....

[hiflier]

Okay, eastern Kentucky. Why there? Maybe to meet up with Adrian Erickson? Maybe not? The point here is that according to some studies over the years by people working on the Sasquatch issue have postulated that the creature seems to prefer a climate that sees 30-40 inches, or more, of annual rainfall. Eastern Kentucky has an annual rainfall of 38 inches. Southeaster Kentucky can average as much as 58 inches. That's about as much as the Ouachita National Forest which has an average annual rainfall of a little over 50". Mason County in Washington state hovers between 40-50 inches a year. These are important facts to know for this thread because it goes to what  one might expect with regards to the quality of DNA collected, even though time and other influences can be a factor affecting that quality. No brainer there, right?

 

But here's where it gets interesting. Mason county, the Ouachita NF, and eastern Kentucky average out about the same on annual rainfall. Dr. Mayor got Chimp DNA (genus Pan troglodyte) from the soil under a wood structure. No one knows how long that structure was there or when a "Chimp or Chimps" visited the site. But regardless the DNA in the soil was good enough quality to show genus. But what about the nest structures in Mason County, Washington? Soil samples were taken there as well and apparently, according to Derek Randles and others, there was still greenery (leaves) on some of the material used to build the structures. So. Fresh structures only a few months old.

 

Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum was called in and he took soil samples from under the centers of the nests. The same protocols ere followed in the lab by Dr. Todd Disotell. And I know that to be true because, like eastern Kentucky, the sequencing process picked up on everything at the nest site that on would expect. In other words, ALL of the organisms that were expected and that had their genomes in the GenBank. So bottom line here is that both Mason County and eastern Kentucky receive approximately the same amount of rainfall, both had some kind of manufactured structure or structures, both had professional PhD's take soil samples, and both ran those samples using a lab protocol utilizing next generation, high throughout, metabarcode sequencing. Both got multiple organisms returned in the results and yet....

 

Break time.....

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by hiflier

[hiflier]

Continuing....

Metabarcoding inthe lab picks up the genus of everything that visits or is currently living is an environment. Everything. Dr. Mayor's did. But she also got genus Pan troglodyte (Chimp) DNA, and, more than likely Human DNA as well. What did Dr. Melderum get. Everything also. With one exception: Human DNA that was apparently too degraded to show maybe Pan troglodyte or some other primate? Both of which are different of a different genus. But nope, same kind of environment with regards to rainfall. And again samples from soil. In Dr. Meldrums case the soils was even more protected from UV rays because the soil was under the nest structures but perfectly capable of showing an organisms genus. How do I know? Because the genus of all the animals that had visited or lived close by turned up in the results. But only ONE was apparently too degraded to show anything other than Human. But t did show genus Homo (Human), right? And the genus of everything else showed up as well. DNA sequencing at that time was very precise and since the announcements by Dr. Meldrum and Dr. Disotell came at about the same time in the Fall of 2018, only about for years ago, those announcements came soon after the lab sequencing and results were known.

Science had already been using environmental DNA sequencing for a couple of decades before those announcements were made to identify an animal's genus in the wild. It was not a new science by any means by the time those soil samples were collected and tested. Dr. Mayor's in 2020 and Drs. Meldrum and Disotell's in 2017 or 2018. So, all being equal where environment, rainfall, professional collection and sequencing protocols, are in line, what gives with one getting a non-Human genus in it sample and the other not? The Human genome is the gold standard, the reference that is used in which all other DNA sequences are compared to. It is the base line and is constantly being refined as more and more Human genomes get factored in to improve it as a reference genome.

The smallest DNA molecule is the mitochondrial but it can have hundreds of copies of itself inside a single cell. And though small, it STILL contains over 16,500 (16,569 to be exact) amino acid pairs. How many, out of those 16,569 amino acid pairs, are needed to determine genus match? Less than 50. Sometimes even only 20. Ideally an unbroken sequence of 150 pairs is ideal and considered a good quality sample. For determining genus that's all it would take. Good enough for Dr. Mayor Kentucky samples submitted to the lab at the University of California. But somehow Dr. Meldrum's from Mason County was too degraded for Dr. Disotell's state-of-the-art lab at the time at NYU? He was, and still is after all, an expert in evolutionary primate genetics, though he has since relocated to UMass Anherst in the fall of 2019. Now I'm no DNA expert but I AM a logician and this one loose end has never made any sense to me whatsoever.

 

Why doesn't it make sense? Because no one knows how long Dr. Mayor's large wood structure was there in eastern Kentucky. And no one knows how long that Chimp DNA was there either. But one thing is certain, the nest structures in Mason county were fresh constructs. Vertical stems were pushed into the ground. All the material for the nests were harvested close by and woven into those nests. So regardless of the soil under the centers of them, there should have been DNA left all over the place there: Under and around these structures on the ground, on the ground in the huckleberry patches and on the stems. DNA should have been just about anywhere that could have been sampled. So what happened? No one thought of that? DNA is pretty tough stuff. It's not going to go away or completely degrade after only a few weeks or months.

Everything I've said so far in these first three posts is all scientific FACT, along other information as it was reported by the parties involved in these discoveries. Fact, Sasquatch DNA won't be Homo Sapien DNA that is closer than Neanderthal or Denisovan or any other recent Human cousin. It's DNA MAY be Homo but it would be so far removed genetically that there would be no chance of mistaking it. In other words, it would have so many mutations as to be unrecognizable as Modern Human no matter how degraded. No one can tell me that out of 16,569 amino acids that none of it would show non-Human mutations. It borders on the ridiculous to think otherwise. The ONLY conclusion that one can arrive at that makes any sense is that Sasquatches did NOT build those structures. But all the manually broken stems of the huckleberry bushes suggests that it wasn't Humans. But if it wasn't Humans then someone is covering up the fact that there must have been Non-Human primate DNA at that Mason county site.

 

The point is, there is no way, when all other animal genera were there, that only Human DNA was found to be degraded, at a site with every chance possible to have DNA fresh enough to show a non-Human primate was present. There. Done. Does anyone agree or disagree with this assessment?  

 

[MIB]

I think it is for the same reason as always: sasquatch DNA is so close to ours that it will always come back as human contamination rather than something novel.   Without a type sample for precise comparison, that is the most reasonable conclusion and it is probably impossible without a type sample to come up with a test that definitively separates one from the other.      IMHO this result shouldn't be a surprise.

[hiflier]

3 minutes ago, MIB said:

I think it is for the same reason as always: sasquatch DNA is so close to ours that it will always come back as human contamination rather than something novel.   Without a type sample for precise comparison

 

And from what I know and have studied that would be virtually impossible. One can tell a Neanderthal from a Modern Human with only 202 different base pairs out of 16,569. And a Sasquatch, should it exist, would be so far back in its primate evolution that genetically just the evolutionary mutation rate would show a major difference. A new dolphin species? A one base pair difference. Is DNA science really that good? Indeed it is. The excuse that Human DNA and Sasquatch DNA is so close as to always somehow be overlooked is a tired one. It is also a gross error that should have been blasted out of the water a log time ago and to perpetuate it as reason for the creature's non-discovery does this community no justice whatsoever. If anything it takes advantage of those who don't know any better. In fact, you yourself should know better by now.

 

Genetic scientists can do closest match just fine. But even if you doubt that, there WILL be undeniable mutations in any Sasquatch DNA that will not be found in a Human genome. And now that DNA research has upped its game exponentially with better knowledge, computers and sequencers, not to mention a far more extensive genome library, Sasquatch DNA shouldn't be at all hard to discover. That chart I posted had TEN mutations in it and was from ELEVEN years ago. What do you think things are like now with current DNA technology's capability? Let me tell you, it's dang near infallible, and can pick out the tiniest of anomalies. Like I said, only one base pair difference found a new dolphin species. That means it's time to lose the Human-contaminated argument. Today's science should be able to find a virtual genetic canyon between Human and a Sasquatch genomes. I'll leave it to you or someone else to lay out the ramifications of what that should be saying to this community.

 

Time to think twice before dismissing the power of today's DNA technological capabilities or thinking it's useless for Sasquatch discovery. Especially within the last 5-7 years up to the present. Do you even REMEMBER the reason Dr. Disotell gave for why the Human DNA was too degraded to show a novel primate?

 

 

 

[MIB]

11 hours ago, hiflier said:

And from what I know and have studied that would be virtually impossible. One can tell a Neanderthal from a Modern Human with only 202 different base pairs out of 16,569.

 

You are mistaken because your example is out of context.   With Neanderthal we have known type specimens.  We have been able to compare a known X to a known Y to see what is different.   In the case of human vs sasquatch, we only have one known and another theorized.   We do not know what the genetic differences will be so we can only say "this is not quite like that" but we do not know if that difference is within human variation or it represents a new species.   

 

Not sure 'bout your math background, but I'm going to try an analogy: with human vs neanderthal we have 1 equation, 1 unknown.   With human vs sasquatch we have 1 equation, 2 unknowns.   If you have any math in your background you know this means there is no unique solution, all you can solve for is a pattern of possible solutions.   That doesn't give us what you assume it gives us.

[hiflier]

And that's what a genetic closest match is all about. A result won't say Sasquatch, but it also won't say Human as close as Neanderthal or Denisovan. But it will say closer than Chimp, Gorilla, or any other known primate. Genome match ups will say it all and a Saquatch genome will be a noticeable outlier full of anomalous mutations. There will be no other way to describe such an outcome other than novel North American primate. The creature may be able to beat a trail cam but it can't beat a DNA sequencer. It didn't 13 years ago and it definitely won't today.

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by hiflier

[hvhart]

6 hours ago, hiflier said:

And that's what a genetic closest match is all about. A result won't say Sasquatch, but it also won't say Human as close as Neanderthal or Denisovan. But it will say closer than Chimp, Gorilla, or any other known primate. Genome match ups will say it all and a Saquatch genome will be a noticeable outlier full of anomalous mutations. There will be no other way to describe such an outcome other than novel North American primate. The creature may be able to beat a trail cam but it can't beat a DNA sequencer. It didn't 13 years ago and it definitely won't today.

 

 

6 hours ago, hiflier said:

And that's what a genetic closest match is all about. A result won't say Sasquatch, but it also won't say Human as close as Neanderthal or Denisovan. But it will say closer than Chimp, Gorilla, or any other known primate. Genome match ups will say it all and a Saquatch genome will be a noticeable outlier full of anomalous mutations. There will be no other way to describe such an outcome other than novel North American primate. The creature may be able to beat a trail cam but it can't beat a DNA sequencer. It didn't 13 years ago and it definitely won't today.

 

By "13 years ago" I assume you refer to the Ketchum debacle, which proved nothing.   Actually, that was 10 years ago.  How time flies....

Edited April 5, 2023 by hvhart
timeline is incorrect.

[hvhart]

To begin with, DNA has no amino acids, which are found in proteins. Nucleotide bases hold the DNA strands together through hydrogen bonding.

 

Until I see the sequence and the primers used I do not believe Mayor's claim of chimpanzee DNA.  Based on behavior and physical characteristics it's as unlikely that Sasquatch DNA is that close to a chimpanzee as it is to be very close to human.  UNLESS hybridization is involved.  Presumably we are talking about mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother only.  So a hybridization event will not show anything about evolution of the male, or the female.  It's a slice in time(of the mating) of the female.  Nuclear eDNA is much more difficult (and expensive) to sequence, and was not likely the case in either the Mayor or the Disotell case.  But, please, show me the data.  If Mayor used a sequencer that had previously been used on chimpanzee DNA, there could be carry over.  Protocol details, especially blanks and standards, would be helpful to know here.

 

Comparisons of the Kentucky vs the Washington environment based only on rainfall neglect other important factors such as microbe species and populations, temperatures, and sample handling.  There is plenty of opportunity for degradation.

 

I am currently analyzing littoral eDNA sequences for signs of an unknown primate and have learned that sequencing errors can confuse the issue, as well as heteroplasmy, and the possibility of sperm mtDNA leaking (into the egg). The latter is fairly minute in humans but may not be so in Sasquatch.

 

The community awaits a sample collected from an observed Sasquatch immediately after deposition, or a body part.  Otherwise, as  mentioned above, there are too many unknowns to base a case on subtle differences.  In the mtDNA region of over 200 bases that I studied, Neanderthal differs from modern human by only ONE mutation, so there's "no room" to distinguish an intermediate Sasquatch there.  Longer sequences in other regions are desirable.      

 

There's a lot of data to sort through in this work.  The so called "mammalian" primers I used also sequenced birds, and fish, lots of them.  Unfortunately I know of no readily available software to do this.  Also, the NCBI BLAST results are not eDNA friendly, so relevant data must be extracted through character manipulation of large flat files.   I wrote BASIC programs and also used Excel sorting.  A goal of this work is to develop a simple procedure that can be used by our Community to analyze sequence data from commercial labs. 

[hiflier]

And there you hav it. I guess I'm more stupid than I thought. Nothing I've said apparently applies to the subject of Sasquatch so never mind. Outa here. Sorry for the intrusion and...carry on.

[Twist]

Deleted 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Twist

[hvhart]

Hiflier, Don't go away mad.  You raised some good questions.

 

PS When I mention "human" I refer to the rCRS standard, haplogroup H2a2a1, from which some humans differ by up to several mutations, further complicating the matter.   

[gigantor]

1 hour ago, hiflier said:

Outa here.

 

Nobody leaves the BFF for long. 

[Incorrigible1]

2 hours ago, hiflier said:

And there you hav it. I guess I'm more stupid than I thought. Nothing I've said apparently applies to the subject of Sasquatch so never mind. Outa here. Sorry for the intrusion and...carry on.

Live and learn.

 

I know you've done loads of both.

[bipedalist]

@hvhart  in one of your responses you alluded to mtDNA only being from the mother but mothers pass theirs on to their female offspring and so on and so on.  

 

But my genetic genealogy knowledge has had people also say that mtDNA IS passed on to males, they just can't pass it on intact to their offspring like females.

 

In other words, without testing my deceased mother I can reliably have my mtDNA tested and have it haplotyped and represent that of my mothers line of females in back of us. Correct or not?   

 

Re: the Mason County nests, were these dissected with professional photography of layering indicating only fresh single layer greenery or were new

nest layers built upon old?  

Edited April 5, 2023 by bipedalist