vilnoori
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Post by vilnoori on Feb 8, 2008 21:30:30 GMT -5
Comments? excerpt on an article posted at www.thevillagesdailysun.com/article...news/news02.txtI quote, "Have there been any recent significant discoveries? Short: “On Nov. 7, the History Channel reported that a DNA sample from a Sasquatch has been analyzed from a board of sharp, threaded, protruding screws placed in front of a cabin in remote Canada. Dr. Curt Nelson, senior scientist and biologist from the University of Minnesota, and anthropologist Dr. Jeff Meldrum from the University of Idaho found a bloody footprint and collected hair, small portions of foot tissue and blood from the bottom of the foot from the ‘screw board’ for DNA sequencing. “The hair sample looked human, but human hair has a medulla, a spongy mass of material in the center of the hair’s core. According to the program, the hair sample matched no known primate and nothing living known to science, certainly not bear. The DNA from the tissue found on the bloody screws was identical to human DNA, except it had one nucleotide polymorphism. The nucleotide that was different, was one shared with chimpanzees. It was primate DNA. They knew they were looking at the DNA structure of a sasquatch. The DNA said ‘primate’ but not quite human and not-quite nonhuman primate … just one of the base pairs is deviated from ours! Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that pretty much cinch the case for Sasquatches being classified in the genus Homo, probably with little difference from us?” Gary Corsair is a senior writer with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119 or gary.corsair@thevillagesmedia.com."
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Post by bigfoothunter on Aug 3, 2008 19:23:00 GMT -5
I understand your thinking in theory, but all it points to is that there is a possible unknown species involved which may or may not be the Sasquatch.
Bigfoothunter
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Post by Gerry on Aug 4, 2008 10:30:01 GMT -5
(They knew they were looking at the DNA structure of a sasquatch.)
I agree that this is a pretty bold statement, when you have no proveable sasquatch DNA to match it to. And the only way you could get such DNA is by removing it from the indentfied body, or body part of a sasquatch. Not from an alleged footprint or hair sample, or blood sample. Catch 22. If you had a real sasquatch you would not need DNA. And DNA is useless unless you have a real sasquatch to compare it to. Otherwise, the samples prove what they prove...they are 'unknown' in origin. This is hardly something to get the scientific community worked up over!
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vilnoori
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Post by vilnoori on Aug 4, 2008 12:46:20 GMT -5
Actually, since DNA is a biochemical blueprint of sorts, and once you sequence it, the code is kept (if it is released) in electronic format (actually there is a DNA database in which you can compare all the known genomes) for anyone to compare it to, it is a very good way to contribute to the whole mountain of evidence which will probably accumulate in the favour of the existence of Sasquatch. It can be compare to that of humans, chimps, gorillas etc. and ALSO to that of Neanderthals, which has been contributed, and to future samples of purported Sasquatch DNA. Since the location it was collected was far away from other human sources, it can be compared to all the people who have visited that location and they can be ruled out.
And you can draw some interesting inferences from it being so human, but again unlike most other humans. It means that unless Gigantopithecus was also almost human, or perhaps we could say Homo, that Sasquatch populations from that area are also "almost human," ie, they are Homo. Not some great ape descended from giganto. It very much strengthens the case for Sas being either one of the already known Homo types found in the fossil record, or of it being a new type of Homo. But Homo it is--couldn't be anything else with so human a genome. And DNA can't be faked, unlike footprints, sightings, etc. You have something there that is not easily falsified, and can be submitted to the scientific community on it's own merit. But Meldrum may decide to hold it back from publication until he has a whole lot more of the same kind of evidence. He will need a mountain of it to push through this hypothesis, and even then people will hold out. Look at the whole struggle of the Homo floresiensis discoverers--they have bones, many bones from multiple bodies, and they are still having a fight!
The scientific community has always been very hard to shake from it's received view, because scientists have so much to lose by being labeled kooks. Dr. Meldrum himself takes quite a risk in conducting these kinds of studies, and I have to applaud him for his courage. He's going to go down in the history books, that's for sure.
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Post by Gerry on Aug 4, 2008 13:14:28 GMT -5
I only see the same problem. What you say is probably factual as far as it goes..but I do not see how one can prove that the DNA of which they speak came from a Sasquatch. The source is still unknown and my argument remains the same. Show me the creature that the DNA came from...and you have a different thing. All of these possible facts are just speculation about an unknown piece of evidence which points to the the existence of some creature but they are not in themselves evidence. of sasquatch This has been discussed in forums for years and there can never be anything conclusive about DNA results. DNA can tell you what a creature is not..but it cannot tell you what it is unless you have the original specimen.imho.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2008 17:12:07 GMT -5
Apparently in an upcoming "Monster Quest" episode, they will be conducting further investigation into the DNA and the cabin area from which it came.
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vilnoori
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Post by vilnoori on Aug 4, 2008 17:47:48 GMT -5
DNA evidence is very strong. Criminal cases are lost and won based upon it. It is stronger than fingerprint evidence, with the only exception being in the case where identical twins occur. It is strong because of the statistics involved and the nature of DNA. DNA is a molecular code which can be used to pattern match. So if a stretch of code is identical in all respects except one, to human, it is indeed very close to human and can be considered so. Even without it being matched to an existing being the evidence is equivalent, because it cannot be faked and it is a tissue sample--just on the molecular level not seen by the naked eye. Biologists these days are actually preferring to use DNA to categorize living things, because it is so standardized and straight-forward, rather than the old methods of comparing appearance.
The presence of a chimp-like element which does not occur in humans means you are indeed looking at something unique, that is human, but slightly more chimp-like. Remember that chimps and humans already have extremely similar DNA. The fact that no living known animal exists in this category doesn't mean that it doesn't exist--the DNA evidence means that it does, but has not been seen with the naked eye yet.
A karyotype (look at the chromosomes) would also help clear up the matter. Because the tissue was so degraded in this sample a karyotype was not possible--the structure of the chromosomes had already degraded within the cells. Chimps and other great apes have 48 (24 pairs) chromosomes, while humans have 46 (23 pairs). If we actually are able to karyotype Sasquatch DNA, finding it to have 23 pairs would put it squarely in the human side of things and I have an inkling that if and when this happens that's what it will be.
Karyotypes require intact cells, and a goodly number of them. Cheek swabs provide a good sample, deep skin or tissue slices, tissue in good condition not very old. Blood and hair is less likely unless it is quite fresh and contains intact cells. I think this will be the next discovery.
We need to be careful of how we ask the questions. Sending a DNA sample to a lab and asking them to identify the animal will not work, if they have no actual Sasquatch to compare it to. You have to ask things like, "is it human? Is it primate? Have you compared it to the Neanderthal sample done in Europe?" It takes a more sophisticated lab to answer those kinds of questions than the ones that have been used so far. A zoo lab, perhaps, or Dr. Nelson's, or some of the primate labs and hominin studies done in Europe.
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Post by Gerry on Aug 10, 2008 21:51:40 GMT -5
And all of that means nothing unless you have a proven specimen of DNA to start with. You cannot 'pattern match' unless you have an established DNA code from a Sasquatch. All DNA will ever prove is that you have a sample from an unknown primate! It has been done a number of times in the past with the same results. It tells us nothing. It proves nothing. Why? Because no one has ever been able to prove that Sasquatch is a primate! He is only referred to as such because we have nothing else to compare him to. That does not say that he is! Nor does it say that he isn't! But I would be very carefull in identifying him with any knows species! Until an actual body is harvested for DNA..he might as well be the off spring between Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy, as far as science is concerned. And you really cannot blame them!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2009 15:54:41 GMT -5
You are right, the DNA can't lie. 99.99% human DNA means they are human. But people are looking at this from the wrong angle. Our DNA is damaged. So we are the ones that are different from them. They aren't the mutants, we are. They are the ancients. They have been around on this planet and others for millions of years. Our version of 'humans' has only existed 300,000 years.
So why are we asking if they are human, because of only one polymorphism different from ours. We should be asking if we are some relative of theirs.
They are the ancients. Tianca
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2009 22:09:00 GMT -5
Whoa Dude..... go easy on the bong water!
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vilnoori
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Post by vilnoori on Feb 2, 2009 23:07:43 GMT -5
Actually, technically she is right. And "our version" of human has only been around for the last 200,000 years. Homo ergaster emerged just under 2 million years ago and similar forms of humans, if you include some of the neanderthals in that category, only disappeared from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago.
If however, we consider them a larger version of Australopithecus types, then they first emerged about 5 million years ago, and the most recent hominins of that sort were the Homo floresiensis fossils that are dated to have lived a mere 12,000 years ago.
I don't think our DNA is damaged, from an evolutionary point of view we are extremely successful as a species. Maybe too successful?
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Sean V.
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Post by Sean V. on Feb 3, 2009 20:58:24 GMT -5
Whoa Dude..... go easy on the bong water! LOL.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2009 1:40:03 GMT -5
happy valentine's everyone!
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 15:54:00 GMT -5
Genetic Homology (as with all forms of Homology) is a pretty weak method of analysis. Using Occam's Razor is a philosophical method of deduction used with simple inferences on physical data. If no Tazmanian Wolf were alive for physical inpection and we only had the bones to work with, everyone today would be saying that the Tazmanian wolf was simply a evolutionary relative of "modern" wolves. Unfortunately we know the sexual organs of the Tazmanian Wolf that it was in fact a marsupial. This is the problem with making inferences according to morphology. Just because two things may superficially look the same in no way determines common origin.
I am always very squeemish about terms like "Junk DNA" or "Damaged DNA". Someone reading English could infer our spaces and punctuation as "mistakes in writing" without realizing our language uses spaces and seemingly superfluous marks to communicate. If someone spells Flavor are they correct in saying Flavour has a junk U in the spelling? DNA is far too complicated to use such simple analogies and try to make certain deductions.
IMHO Genetic Homology is not very useful at all. We may wish to make such conclusions but I think the current talk on DNA is us really remarking on the tip of the DNA iceberg and it's far too soon to start making conclusions until we know more about it.
What we might expect from a Sasquatch DNA can prove helpful. But by no means deductive. Sasquatch could just as well have "divergent" DNA.
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Cryptosaurian
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Post by Cryptosaurian on Mar 7, 2016 23:02:58 GMT -5
I have to agree with Gerry; it just says unknown primate........which can mean anything from human to pongid type primate....right now, the only that counts is a body and if the dna from THAT collected body matches with the Snelgrove samples....THEN we have something solid.... But for now, the most we can say is that something left dna samples on the screwboard. What that 'something' is I shall not waste time indulging in speculation.
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