Species Homo Sapiens Research Articles

Revisiting eco-ethics and econ-ethics

Modern humanity can survive only if traditional ethics are extended to include eco- ethics and econ-ethics. Success or failure in developing and implementing these new ethical con- structs will affect the fate of our species Homo sapiens and that of millions of other forms of life. In the long run failure to accept and apply eco-ethics and econ-ethics would reduce the capacities of Planet Earth to support life.

The mandibular canal of the “Old Man” of Cro-Magnon: anatomical-radiological study

Introduction: The radiological study of the ‘old man' of Cro-Magnon mandible complements the one published about the mandibular canal of the “Neanderthal Man” of La Chapelle-aux-Saints with which it is compared. Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the internal structure of this famous fossil. Material and methods: The mandible of the “old man” of Cro-Magnon (22 000 BC) was studied with panoramic radiography and CT scanning. Results: The mandibular canal is similar to that of modern man. The images obtained are of a good quality and can be used for analysis of the internal structures of bony fossils. Conclusion: The mandible of the “old man” of Cro-Magnon belongs to the species Homo sapiens sapiens. Copyright 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. on behalf of European Association for Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery

Cluster analysis of the codon use frequency of MHC genes from different species

The relative synonymous codon use frequency of 135 MHC genes from four mammal species ( Homo sapiens, Pan troglodyte, Macaca mulanta and Rattus norvegicus) is analyzed using a hierarchical cluster method. The result suggests that gene function is the dominant factor that determines codon usage bias, while species is a minor factor that determines further difference in codon usage bias for genes with similar functions. The conclusion may be useful in gene classification and gene function prediction.

人類進化と新生代後期の環境変化 ヒト科の出現 中新世におけるヒト上科の展開

The human lineage is a branch of the huge evolutionary tree of the Hominoidea, which today includes ourselves, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons. All extant hominoids, except for the single world-wide species Homo sapiens, are now endangered and restricted in their distribution to tropical/subtropical forests of Africa and Southeast Asia. However, hominoids were once a more flourishing group millions of years ago. In the Miocene, there were various kinds of hominoid primates, and their distribution was much wider than today, from the southern tip of Africa through Arabia, to Europe in the west and through India to China in the east. It is from this great diversity of Miocene hominoids that the earliest human ancestors emerged, probably during the Late Miocene. The first part of this article provides readers with general information about extant hominoids. The second part is devoted to Miocene fossil hominoids with emphasis on African fossils. Although the main subject of this article is fossil hominoids, some recent findings of early hominids are also mentioned to at the end.

The human genome structure and organization.

Genetic information of human is encoded in two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial. Both of them reflect molecular evolution of human starting from the beginning of life (about 4.5 billion years ago) until the origin of Homo sapiens species about 100,000 years ago. From this reason human genome contains some features that are common for different groups of organisms and some features that are unique for Homo sapiens. 3.2 x 10(9) base pairs of human nuclear genome are packed into 23 chromosomes of different size. The smallest chromosome - 21st contains 5 x 10(7) base pairs while the biggest one -1st contains 2.63 x 10(8) base pairs. Despite the fact that the nucleotide sequence of all chromosomes is established, the organisation of nuclear genome put still questions: for example: the exact number of genes encoded by the human genome is still unknown giving estimations from 30 to 150 thousand genes. Coding sequences represent a few percent of human nuclear genome. The majority of the genome is represented by repetitiVe sequences (about 50%) and noncoding unique sequences. This part of the genome is frequently wrongly called "junk DNA". The distribution of genes on chromosomes is irregular, DNA fragments containing low percentage of GC pairs code lower number of genes than the fragments of high percentage of GC pairs.

The problem of sex in the religions of the Abrahamic tradition

The paradox of the existence of the species Homo sapiens is that we do not even know: Who are we? Why are we? Where did you go from? Why? At all times - from antiquity to our time - the philosophers touched on this topic. It takes an important place in all religions of the world. These eternal questions include gender issues. In the religious systems of the religions of the Abrahamic tradition there is no single answer to the question of which sex was the first person. Recently, British scientists have even tried to prove that Eve is 84 thousand years older Adam

A Darwinian Theory of Ethnicity, "Race," and Nationality

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. Abraham Lincoln (1971:40) Introduction The figure summarizes this paper. The theory it proposes views large-scale human sociocultural evolution (aka world history) as a Darwinian speciation cycle that started with the origin of Homo sapiens somewhere in the Great Rift Valley of east Africa, proceeded to the worldwide dispersion of small populations of that species, and to their ethnic and racial diversification. But then, instead of driving straight ahead to the typical endpoint of the cycle (and the start of a new one) via the evolution of new hominid species from these populations -- i.e., speciation -- Homo sapiens suddenly reversed field and began fostering closer and closer contact and interchange among them all. Nations and nationalities, major instrumentalities in this process, remain dominant (though declining) features of our life today. This much is history -- past and present (solid lines in the figure). The rest is future (dashed lines), and no future is predictable with certainty. The theory offered here, then, proposes only a conditional and probabilistic, not an inviolably deterministic or prophetic, prediction: If the population contact just mentioned continues on its present course, it will very likely produce a global consolidation of Homo sapiens into a single population consisting of one ethnicity, one race, and one nationality. Darwin's explanatory mechanism for the evolution of all species of life -- namely, toward maximum species survival-fitness (Darwin [1859] 1968; see Klein 1999:3) -- is the basic theoretical support for this prediction (there is empirical support too, as we shall see). That is to say, insofar as global species consolidation would advance the survival-fitness of Homo sapiens far beyond that which any ethnic, racial, or nationality population could ever hope for as a separate entity, D arwinian natural selection will favor such consolidation. The theory that has just been outlined will be referred to hereinafter, for brevity's sake, as OD2C2 (with all due apologies to R2D2 and Y2K). The next section describes, and cites appropriate evidential grounds for, the five turning-points of OD2C2. Then, in the sections that follow, the discussion will focus on explaining the transitions from one turning-point to the next. Five Turning-Points Origin There is now a general consensus among paleoanthropologists and geneticists that the species Homo sapiens (latest product of the 2.5 million year-old evolution of the genus Homo), evolved roughly 200 thousand years ago, somewhere in the southern limb of the Great Rift Valley that stretches some 1500 miles through eastern Africa from the southern end of the Red Sea into present-day Tanzania (see Klein 1999:146, 257, 511-514; Ayala 1995:1935; Tattersall 1995:243-246; Marks 1995:17; Fagan 1989:81-120; 1990:15, 20; Wilford 1995; compare Wolpoff, Zhi, and Thorpe 1984:464-467; Norris 1999).'''''' Homo sapiens seems to have spent its first 150 thousand years eking out a precarious but mostly peaceful existence in small, nomadic, food-foraging bands that were slowly growing and dispersing locally -- that is, up and down the African Rift Valley -- and coexisting there with other hominid species that have not survived (see Tattersall 2000). Dispersion: Local and Non-Local However, about 50 thousand years ago (see Klein 1999:494; Stringer and McKie 1996:143-169) -- and almost surely under pressure of competition -- some of these bands began foraging beyond the valley itself, thereby taking the first steps in what would turn out to be a two-thousand-generations-long, leapfrog, push-me-pull-you, journey to the ends of the Earth. In the course of this journey, many bands would be killed off by one thing or another, but others would survive to establish settlements on all the major landmasses of the Earth except Antarctica: south, west, and north Africa, Arabia and the Middle East, Eurasia generally, Australia and Polynesia, Siberia, the Arctic, the Americas, and, less than 2 thousand years ago, New Zealand (see Fagan 1990:234; Molnar 1992:190). …

The evolution of human biosocial behaviour

The analysis of human behaviour can be approached from three different but complementary perspectives: the first includes the eternal debate about the degree of environmental or genetic determinism of social behaviour; the second, in the context of evolutionary ecology, concerns the evaluation of behavioural responses to morphological and/or environmental changes that have been the key to success in our species; the third, in the context of the analysis of the biology of the health of modern day populations, deals with the biological consequences of social behavioural changes. The secret of the success of a species resides in its capacity to respond behaviourally to the morphological and environmental changes produced during its biological history. What is unique about humans concerns our brains and their derived function: flexible behaviour. The morphological, physiological and behavioural changes that allow thecreation and maintenance of such a large brain are intimately connected to reproduction and therefore to the biosociology of women, the members of the speciesHomo sapiens in whom are combined, with notable success, a prolonged life-cycle, some anatomical and physiological traits and flexible reproductive behaviour, which together confer a decisive demographic advantage on them over other hominids. In summary, as well as contributing to the spread of this information by which women can make informed decisions based on a knowledge of causes, with the aim of optimizing our health it is necessary to consider the possibility of approaching some aspects of our biology and behaviour as patterns fixed by evolution. Three factors would be the most easily adjustable for this purpose: a) to delay the age of sexual maturation, b) to bring forward the age of first maternity, and c) to encourage breastfeeding on demand without substitutes and for a 3–5 month period.

What Ecologists Can Learn from Nuclear Scientists

The Editors of Ecosystems are to be commended, not just for recognizing the growing importance of bridging the social and the biophysical sciences, but for challenging their colleagues to start building better bridges. We hope to help by illustrating two principles from social science research that appear to have particular value for our ecological science colleagues. The first is one that is increasingly recognized in the abstract, although it is still too often forgotten in scientific practice: There are few ecosystems on planet earth that are not already influenced, as well as cared about, by members of the species Homo sapiens. The second principle tends to be little understood even in the abstract, but it is one with special relevance to ecological scientists: Realworld scientific and technical decisions inherently involve not just facts, and not just a mixture of facts and values, but a combination of facts, values, and blind spots. One of the reasons why the second principle is so little understood is that most scientific disciplines can ignore it until the scientific work is turned into practical applications. For scientists who study ecosystems that are larger than a test-tube scale, however, the scientific research itself can bring about far greater contact with the public than is the case for a laboratory chemist, for example, or for that matter an intergalactic astronomer. Even experimental ecosystems research often inherently involves an effort to manipulate a real-world site, an effort to keep other human beings from 'manipulating" the site, or both.

Genomic Evolution, Patterns of Global Dissemination, and Interspecies Transmission of Human and Simian T-cell Leukemia/Lymphotropic Viruses

Using both env and long terminal repeat (LTR) sequences, with maximal representation of genetic diversity within primate strains, we revise and expand the unique evolutionary history of human and simian T-cell leukemia/lymphotropic viruses (HTLV/STLV). Based on the robust application of three different phylogenetic algorithms of minimum evolution-neighbor joining, maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood, we address overall levels of genetic diversity, specific rates of mutation within and between different regions of the viral genome, relatedness among viral strains from geographically diverse regions, and estimation of the pattern of divergence of the virus into extant lineages. Despite broad genomic similarities, type I and type II viruses do not share concordant evolutionary histories. HTLV-I/STLV-I are united through distinct phylogeographic patterns, infection of 20 primate species, multiple episodes of interspecies transmission, and exhibition of a range in levels of genetic divergence. In contrast, type II viruses are isolated from only two species (Homo sapiens and Pan paniscus) and are paradoxically endemic to both Amerindian tribes of the New World and human Pygmy villagers in Africa. Furthermore, HTLV-II is spreading rapidly through new host populations of intravenous drug users. Despite such clearly disparate host populations, the resultant HTLV-II/STLV-II phylogeny exhibits little phylogeographic concordance and indicates low levels of transcontinental genetic differentiation. Together, these patterns generate a model of HTLV/STLV emergence marked by an ancient ancestry, differential rates of divergence, and continued global expansion.

When women win

In Homo sapiens and other species, promiscuity, risk-taking, and aggression are less matters of sex (having XX vs. XY) than gender (giving PI vs. resources and/or genes). Classic role reversals include: sea-horses, polyandrous birds, and a few heiresses in England and Rome. Unlike other females, but like many males, they are assertive, they take chances, and they are not chaste.

Morphology, paleoanthropology, and neanderthals

Morphology carries the primary signal of events in the evolutionary history of any group of organisms but has been relatively neglected by paleoanthropologists, those who study the history of the human species. Partly this is the result of historical influences, but it is also due to a rather fundamentalist adherence among paleoanthropologists to the tenets of the Neodarwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. The result has been a general paleoanthropological desire to project the species Homo sapiens back into the past as far and in as linear a manner as possible. However, it is clear that the human fossil record, like that of most other taxa, reveals a consistent pattern of systematic diversity--a diversity totally unreflected in the conventional minimalist interpretation of that record. Thus, the Neanderthals, both morphologically and behaviorally as distinctive a group of hominids as ever existed, are conventionally classified simply as a subspecies of our own species Homo sapiens--a classification that robs these extinct relatives of their evolutionary individuality. Only when we recognize the Neanderthals as a historically distinctive evolutionary entity, demanding understanding in its own terms, will we be able to do them proper justice. And we will only be able to do this by restoring morphology to its proper place of primacy in human evolutionary studies.

Morphology, paleoanthropology, and neanderthals

Morphology carries the primary signal of events in the evolutionary history of any group of organisms but has been relatively neglected by paleoanthropologists, those who study the history of the human species. Partly this is the result of historical influences, but it is also due to a rather fundamentalist adherence among paleoanthropologists to the tenets of the Neodarwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. The result has been a general paleoanthropological desire to project the species Homo sapiens back into the past as far and in as linear a manner as possible. However, it is clear that the human fossil record, like that of most other taxa, reveals a consistent pattern of systematic diversity—a diversity totally unreflected in the conventional minimalist interpretation of that record. Thus, the Neanderthals, both morphologically and behaviorally as distinctive a group of hominids as ever existed, are conventionally classified simply as a subspecies of our own species Homo sapiens—a classification that robs these extinct relatives of their evolutionary individuality. Only when we recognize the Neanderthals as a historically distinctive evolutionary entity, demanding understanding in its own terms, will we be able to do them proper justice. And we will only be able to do this by restoring morphology to its proper place of primacy in human evolutionary studies. Anat. Rec. (New Anat.) 253:113–117, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The water battle: Human behaviour, wildlife conservation and the long‐term future

Considering that fresh water is such a vital component of living organisms, there is relatively little of it available on the planet. Further, at any one point and at any one time there appears to be either too little or too much. Drought and flood alternate in the news every year, sometimes in one region over a few months, sometimes occurring simultaneously in different regions. As a species Homo sapiens is engaged in a continuous and unremitting battle either for or against water. Many of the methods used to provide, control and use water actually compound the problems for humans and have devastating effects on other species and ecosystems in many parts of the world including Britain. From the ecological conservationist view Homo sapiens has no more right to water than any other species, though this may not be the view of the humanitarian or the purist ecologist. The technical ingenuity shown by human populations to provide and control water has not been matched by long‐term strategies of use or conservation and it is clear that H. sapiens does not learn ‐ or at least does not wish to learn ‐ from history about water use or contamination. Human behaviour is unlikely to change and therefore population control either through external or internal constraints is the only significant long‐term strategy for optimal water provision. This article outlines the historical behaviour of human populations in relation to fresh water supply, control and contamination and the consequent effects on other species and ecosystems, and looks at the future realistically.

Genes and politics.

The science of genetics arose to study the transmission of physical characteristics from parents to their offspring. When closely studied, much variation exists for virtually any characteristic, say, in size or color, among the members of all species, be they flies, dogs, or ourselves, the members of the Homo sapiens species. The origin of this variability long fascinated the scientific world, which already in the 19th century asked how much of this variation is due to environmental causes (nurture) as opposed to innate hereditary factors (nature) that pass unchanged from parents to offspring. That such innate heredity exists could never be realistically debated. One need just look at how characteristics in the shape of the face pass through families. Ascribing, say, the uniqueness of the Windsor face to nurture as opposed to nature goes beyond the realm of credibility.

Essential Membership

In this paper I take issue with the doctrine that organisms belong of their very essence to the natural kinds (or biological taxa, if these are not kinds) to which they belong. This view holds that any human essentially belongs to the species Homo sapiens, any feline essentially belongs to the cat family, and so on. I survey the various competing views in biological systematics. These offer different explanations for what it is that makes a member of one species, family, etc. a member of that taxon. Unfortunately, none of them offers an explanation that is compatible with the essentialism in question.

The contribution of slippage-like processes to genome evolution

Simple sequences present in long (> 30 kb) sequences representative of the single-copy genome of five species (Homo sapiens, Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, E. coli, and Mycobacterium leprae) have been analyzed. A close relationship was observed between genome size and the overall level of sequence repetition. This suggested that the incorporation of simple sequences had accompanied increases of genome size during evolution. Densities of simple sequence motifs were higher in noncoding regions than in coding regions in eukaryotes but not in eubacteria. All five genomes showed very biased frequency distributions of simple sequence motifs in all species, particularly in eukaryotes where AAA and TTT predominated. Interspecific comparisons showed that noncoding sequences in eukaryotes showed highly significantly similar frequency distributions of simple sequence motifs but this was not true of coding sequences. ANOVA of the frequency distributions of simple sequence motifs indicated strong contributions from motif base composition and repeat unit length, but much of the variation remained unexplained by these parameters. The sequence composition of simple sequences therefore appears to reflect both underlying sequence biases in slippage-like processes and the action of selection. Frequency distributions of simple sequence motifs in coding sequences correlated weakly or not at all with those in noncoding sequences. Selection on coding sequences to eliminate undesirable sequences may therefore have been strong, particularly in the human lineage.

Genetics and modern human origins

AbstractThe past decade has brought considerable debate on the subject of modern human origins. The nature of the transition from Homo erectus to archaic Homo sapiens to modern H. sapiens has been examined primarily in terms of the relative contribution of archaic populations to later moderns, both within and among geographic regions. The recent African origin model proposes that modern humans appeared first in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, and then spread through the rest of the Old World, replacing preexisting populations.1–6 This model has been referred to by a variety of names, including “replacement”, “Garden of Eden”, “Noah's Ark”, and “out of Africa”. The recent African origin model contrasts with the multiregional model, which proposes a species‐wide transition to modern humans throughout the Old World during the past million years or more.7–10 Indeed, some proponents of the multiregional model advocate placing Homo erectus and all subsequent species of Homo in the evolutionary species Homo sapiens.11 This contrasts with the view that there were multiple hominid species during the Middle Pleistocene. The debate continues.12,13 Although the multiregional model is often portrayed as proposing a simultaneous transition to anatomically modern humans in different geographic regions, it explicitly allows for varying degrees of continuity across time and space.10 This model, in the broad sense, does not rule out the possibility that modern human morphology appeared first in Africa and then spread through the rest of the Old World through gene flow. However, not all advocates of the multiregional model adhere to this specific subset of the general model.9Comparison of the African and multiregional models is complicated by considering other, less extreme, hypotheses. Some versions of the recent African origin model imply a speciation event associated with the initial origin of modern humans. Another version, which suggests the possibility of some admixture between “moderns” leaving Africa and preexisting “archaics” elsewhere in the Old World,14,15 is similar to some variants of the multiregional model, which also suggest that modern morphology appeared first in Africa, but involved admixture with other Old World populations.16 The major difference between these views appears to be the extent of admixture, although the exact level is never specified. A further complication is the possibility that multiple dispersals from Africa produced a more complicated pattern of worldwide variation.17

Ethnicity and Estimates of Pain by Physicians

ABSTRACT To the Editor. —The recent article by Dr Todd and colleagues1 again raises an antiquated and unscientific concept, namely, race. Although the title suggests a study on ethnic differences, race is also studied and specifically mentioned in the text as well as tables. What is particularly odd is the apparent distinction made between the Hispanic group and the non-Hispanic white group. The authors clearly categorize Hispanics as a separate racial group.The cultural, ethnic, and geographic makeup of Los Angeles Hispanics is so diverse that collectively referring to this group as a race has no meaning. Moreover, classifying any group of peoples as a race is an outmoded scientific idea. Under the rules of taxonomy, formal subdivisions of the species Homo sapiens are called subspecies. Human races being such a formal subdivision are therefore subspecies. The division of species into subspecies increasingly has been abandoned in recent years. In

Phylogenetic relationships among Homo sapiens and related species based on restriction site variations in rDNA spacers.

A rapid method, using 12 restriction enzymes, was employed to analyze variations in ribosomal DNA (rDNA) spacers in a study of phylogenetic relationships between Homo sapiens and related species. We mapped restriction sites in the external and internal spacer regions and compared the arrangements of sites. The estimated sequence divergence between Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo pygmaeus, Hylobates lar, H. agilis, and Macaca fuscata was 2.7, 2.3, 3.8, 7.3, 6.8, 7.8, and 14.1%, respectively. The genetic relationships inferred from these distances generally correspond to those inferred from analyses of other molecular markers in the literature. The divergence between H. lar and H. agilis and between H. lar and H. syndactylus was 0.34 and 2.4%, respectively.