Posted on 03/12/2018 7:09:07 AM PDT by C19fan
Thousands of years ago, a special child was born in the Sahara. At the time, this was not a desert; it was a green belt of savannas, woodlands, lakes and rivers. Bands of hunter-gatherers thrived there, catching fish and spearing hippos.
A genetic mutation had altered the child’s hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that ferries oxygen through the body. It was not harmful; there are two copies of every gene, and the child’s other hemoglobin gene was normal. The child survived, had a family and passed down the mutation to future generations.
As the greenery turned to desert, the descendants of the hunter-gatherers became cattle-herders and farmers, and moved to other parts of Africa. The mutation endured over generations, and for good reason. People who carried one mutated gene were protected against one of the biggest threats to humans in the region: malaria.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
... as a result of Global Warming, caused by evil Republicans and their SUV's.
A very natural process. This is how organisms adapt to their environment.
Yes, Trump’s fault! /s
I doubt anyone was spearing hippos. There probably wasn't a prehistoric weapon which could poke through a hippo's skin unless one was on top of it, and that's gonna be really difficult.
Hmmmm. The header indicates the WaPo, yet the link says NYT?
Never mentioned, but greater resistance to malaria is what made using enslaved Africans in America economically feasible. They lacked scientific knowledge, but the word spread anecdotally that blacks could work in malarial lowlands without getting sick.
This fact, not some moral superiority, explains why slavery didn’t grow in cooler dryer areas.
Yep. Hippos are the single most deadly African big game animal. I've seen estimates of 3000 deaths per year. They can get moving pretty fast when they want to and will charge and stop you flat.
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Why post such total BS here?
Our defense against disease is our inate immune system, which we constantly attempt to destroy by using drugs.
Sickle cell is caused by nutritional deficiencies of the birth parents. Those deficiencies are often geographical.
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Islam is what made enslaved Africans in America available and affordable.
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>> “The header indicates the WaPo, yet the link says NYT?” <<
No difference.
They’re both total fake news outlets.
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“This fact, not some moral superiority, explains why slavery didn’t grow in cooler dryer areas.”
Usual BS from the lying media indeed (except that sickle cell is genetic and “not caused by nutritional deficiencies of the birth parents”).
How any more Orwellian the lying media could be, presenting an horribly incapaciting defect as somehow advantageous based on some stupid and unverifiable innuendos?
Malaria has existed nearly everywhere on the planet, even up to Archangel in the far-East, even in the 16th century British parliament, so it has affected almost everybody. Had sickle cell given Blacks any evolutive advantage over Asians or Europeans, especially concerning malaria, we should have seen some evidence of it, e.g. in bigger population centers or better health or less mortality in Africa, of much higher prevalence of the gene, in ancient times or now. But there is no such thing.
All lies, from the ignorant presstitudes and a hopelessly corrupt academia.
That’s interesting to me. When I joined the Navy, they pulled me (Caucasian dude) and 3 much darker skinned guys and sent us to medical. They told the four of us that we either have sickle cell anemia, or sickle cell trait (me), and that there going to test me again (ended up testing me 4 times).
All these years later, 3 of my 4 daughters have it as well.
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