Mitochondrial Eve

For this blog I will talk to you, the reader, about Mitochondrial Eve. What is Mitochondrial Eve you ask? Well good thing I'm writing this blog and you asked because I will tell you.

Mitochondrial Eve was the first mother. She is your relative, my relative, and your friends' relative. How you ask can this be possible? Well it is because of the "powerhouse", or mitochondria, in all cells that make this possible. You see, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is only passed from mother to offspring without recombination. This means that it does not break and rejoin to form new DNA strands. So this means that every person can trace their mtDNA through their mothers and their mother's mother and so on, all the way back to the first female.

Mitochondrial Eve is believed to have lived around 200,000 years ago in Eastern Africa. She is not believed to be the first female ever, just the first female to produce a direct unbroken female line to the present day. She gets her name from the Biblical Eve and obviously after mitochondria.

 5 Different Types of People from Around the World:

Artist rendition of Mitochondrial Eve

Migration of humans over the years
 

5 Different Types of People from Around the World:

Swedish: Tall, Blue-eyed, blond, and fair skin.


French: Olive complexion, dark hair and eyes, strong facial features, and slender.


Chinese: Flat face, brown eyes and hair, and rounded chin.


German: Lighter hair, blue/green eyes, and average height.


Russian: Lighter skin, longer face, full lips, and lighter colored eyes.


Click here to see what the average person from around the world looks like!

Human Genome Project:

It was a thirteen year project in which the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The project originally was planned to last 15 years, but rapid technological advances accelerated the completion date to 2003. It had several project goals that included: identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA, determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, store this information in databases, improve tools for data analysis, and more. Use the following three links to learn more about how we are slowly but surely identifying and learning more and more about what makes up our DNA!
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3