The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic AncestryThe national bestseller that reveals how we are descended from seven prehistoric women. In 1994 Bryan Sykes was called in as an expert to examine the frozen remains of a man trapped in glacial ice in northern Italy for over 5000 years—the Ice Man. Sykes succeeded in extracting DNA from the Ice Man, but even more important, writes Science News, was his "ability to directly link that DNA to Europeans living today." In this groundbreaking book, Sykes reveals how the identification of a particular strand of DNA that passes unbroken through the maternal line allows scientists to trace our genetic makeup all the way back to prehistoric times—to seven primeval women, the "seven daughters of Eve." |
From inside the book
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... protein in bones and it supports them in much the same way as steel rods strengthen reinforced concrete. It made sense that if collagen failed because of a fault in the gene, the bones would break. The research involved finding out a ...
... protein, which would have been horrendously difficult, and use the newly invented chain reaction to amplify what, if anything, was left of the DNA in the ancient bones. If it worked, then we would get vastly more information from the ...
... proteins, bits of cells, maybe some fat – and, we hoped, a few molecules of DNA. We decided to get rid of the protein ... protein, rather like the ones in a biological washing powder which get rid of blood and other stains for the same ...
... proteins as the hereditary material. They were complicated, sophisticated, had twenty different components (the amino-acids) and could assume millions of different forms. Surely, the thinking went, only something really complicated ...
... proteins. This entailed making long crystalline fibres of purified DNA and bombarding them with X-rays. As the X-rays entered the DNA, most went straight through and out the other side. But a few collided with the atoms in the molecular ...
Contents
1 | |
3 | |
22 | |
32 | |
The Special Messenger | 52 |
The Tsar and I | 63 |
The Puzzle of the Pacific | 79 |
The Greatest Voyagers | 96 |
Adam Joins the Party | 185 |
The Seven Daughters | 195 |
Ursula | 202 |
Xenia | 213 |
Helena | 221 |
Velda | 234 |
Tara | 243 |
Katrine | 252 |
The First Europeans | 108 |
The Last of the Neanderthals | 116 |
Hunters and Farmers | 131 |
We Are Not Amused | 146 |
Cheddar Man Speaks | 169 |
Jasmine | 260 |
The World | 271 |
A Sense of Self | 287 |
Index | 299 |