(God, I love that name!)
I don't want to dissapoint you, but I'm not Mormon, and I'm already married.
quantify novel genes
Jeepers, I don't think I could find one source, this is a field I have been studying over several years. I would look at Science, Natural History, Discovery, and Scientific American, which are some of the principal magazines I read, but I do occasionally try to go to the major sources.
Perhaps a good source might be the trial transcripts for the O.J.Simson trial. I think they tried (too hard) to identify the mutative rate of DNA. I think the largest study on mutative rates (and rise and fall within populations) was done with the Eve project, where microdrial DNA was studied to determine when (and where) the first female ancestor was located. This was primarily written in Science and the British Nature but results were reported in all the above mentioned sources about 5 years ago.
The human rates were correlated with fossil finds, such as the division between horse & donkey which could be measured between fossil records, and DNA signatures. Several other species separations were studied, but I can't say what they were.
Much of the studies are done on either Micondrial DNA (present in the egg cell and therefore only passed by women with no sexual mixing) or 'Y' chromosome which is only passed by men (but with possibly, but very low rate sexual mixing). Then anticipated sexual mixing is added by statistics, which may not be a foolproof method since there is some possiblilty that there is sexual dominances that are not understood with other chromosomes.
The main point is just as one would expect. When a population is expanding, there is more "room" for novel genes. When the population contracts, there is selection between the genes. (Combinations are as important as individual genes for both growth and selection).
TP
sciboard.louisville.edu
(I'm not finding good web sources right now) |
