A Gene Map of Europe

Comments

• 	Well illustrated dtutelman on 09/03/2008 at 8:41 AM
  Posts: 23 Avg Rating:	My compliments to whoever chose the illustrations for the story. The combination of a genetic map and a political map with matching coloring told me immediately what the experiment was. I was able to read the rest of the article with more interest and more understanding than if the maps were not there. Thanks, DaveT Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Interesting... lasertekk on 09/03/2008 at 2:05 PM

  Posts: 27 Avg Rating:

  Very impressed also.  I can clearly see that some populations kept to themselves.  In much of Europe, especially the northern areas, villages were effectively isolated by huge, thick forests many hundreds if not thousands of years ago.  This prevented allot of cross contact and mixing.  This ended when locals started to clear an ever increasing amount of land for farming and livestock. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Interesting Buckwheat469 on 09/03/2008 at 5:36 PM

  Posts: 33 Avg Rating:

  This is interesting, but is it old news? I thought I stumbled upon this some time ago. Anyway, I understand that distance in dot separation represents differences in the genome, however the article or researchers haven't discussed why some countries/cultures, like Italy and Spain, are so separated from the rest of Europe. Does it have to do with natural terrain, differences in language or physical appearance (past racism), or is there some other reason why these countries are separated from the rest? Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: Interesting chrisjmiller on 09/04/2008 at 5:04 AM

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    The obvious explanation for the separation of Italy and Spain is that they are both peninsulas separated by significant mountain ranges (the Alps and Pyrenees, respectively) from the rest of Europe.  These would have presented no barriers to coastal traders, of course, but people living in the interior would find communication difficult across these natural barriers. I'd be more surprised if there were such a thing as a Belgian genome - a country that didn't exist 200 years ago and having no significant barriers with its neighbours. Rate this comment: (Reply)

    • 	Re: Interesting gabrielg01 on 09/04/2008 at 2:45 PM
      Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	No there is no explanation to why Italy should be genetically isolated. It was the "center of the world" for thousands of years, and such power centers always attracted large numbers of immigrants. They attracted large invading armies too, which pillaged and raped (literally) the local population. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	Fitting data to make up a story gabrielg01 on 09/04/2008 at 2:36 PM
  Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	Well, what is rather weird in the whole story is that current political entities (states) are being linked to genetic data. But numerous European states did not even exist 200-300 years ago...and many other states had a different geographical area. It looks like retroactive story making. You know what the conclusions are, so you just have to fit the data to it. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	Geographic factor in the map algorithms Sly on 09/06/2008 at 3:50 AM
  Posts: 10 Avg Rating:	How comes an Italian gene is placed on the map near Italy ? I mean, there is a parameter that put an italian on the lower right of a french, and an english on its upper side. So you can't draw theories (like the comment above on the separation of Italy) based on that, since the position are already biased. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	Where the maps briang1621 on 09/07/2008 at 10:11 AM
  Posts: 58 Avg Rating:	Where are the maps, there is only a small thumbnail? When a story is written accompanying media (video, & picture) must be displayed correctly. I have on many occasions read articles where the pictures or movies failed to play, or were in non-normal formats (like a movie in PDF). Being an owner of a web company, I feel that is not acceptable.    Thanks Brian Rate this comment: (Reply)