Why do Asians look Asian?

[Dr Strangelove]

Genetically Africans have a greater diversity than the other races combined. Because they share a relativley common clime they have certain superficial similarities imposed, i.e., very dark skin and curly hair.


Hindus, Pakistanis, Persians, Arabs and Jews are considered Caucasians.
One reason that orientals have epicanthal folds is that they have a thicker layer of subdermal fat, which is an adaptation to their northern asian origins.

[Cruddy]

Well, now you know what to search for. Happy Googling.

[Al B. Sure!]

Dr. Strangelove:

That's still odd especially considering the vast superficial differences between a Swede, a Hindu, and a Korean.

[Cruddy]

Albert S, this is a sore subject for me.

Despite being descended from NW Scotland ancestors, I HAVE GOT EPICANTHIC FOLDS!

No wonder I always wear glasses to disguise them. _ suspect my family have got some Inuit blood mixed in somewhere.

[Bosh]

No wonder I always wear glasses to disguise them

Why? What's wrong with epicanthic folds?

Cruddy: the difference in appearance of Koreans/Japanese/Chinese is generally overstated and mostly due to different dress and bearing than anything else...

[Al B. Sure!]

Cruddy:

my grandmother got them too

[Al B. Sure!]

Boshko:

Cantonese do look different than Manchu and Han though and they are all chinese.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Dr. Strangelove:

That's still odd especially considering the vast superficial differences between a Swede, a Hindu, and a Korean.

Well, that just goes to show how superficial you are.

[Lord Merciless]

Chinese is more of cultural concept than racial one, same with American.

The purest race is the one that reproduces through incests. But that's off topic.

[Al B. Sure!]

Strangelove:

but aren't there dozens of gene strands that create such traits as hair colour and eye colour and all that? i mean, i would think that a blue eyed blonde swede would have all these strands be different from a dark skinned, black haired hindu...

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
Chinese is more of cultural concept than racial one, same with American.

The purest race is the one that reproduces through incests. But that's off topic.

"Chinese" used to be a cultural concept. But over time it did become racial.[well, certainly more racial than "American" as a concept] And now, with the incorporation of certain - ahem - outlying areas it is being made out to be a cultural concept again.

But that aside: Caucasians may find that there is much more variation among themselves than among Asians: but prob this is due to perspective. Chinese people who've never been out of China certainly end up equating everyone from Xinjiang to India to Scotland, while being able to pick out fine differences between people from individual Chinese provinces.

[Gods Pet Monkey]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Last that I heard all non-Africans have been traced to a group of Homo sapiens who migrated out of Africa by crossing the Red Sea into Yemen about 70,000 years ago.

The problem is that aboriginal sites in Australia keep popping up and appearing to be 70,000 to 100,000 years old, which keep confusing everyone (the last I heard, the oldest official aboriginal site found was 47,000 years old)

[MichaeltheGreat]

GPM - off topic, but your signature is wrong.

It was one million, not 12 billion, and less than a decade. (The entire NASA budget for the 60's wasn't much over 12 billion).

And there are reasons to not use a pencil in an orbiting spacecraft. (graphite's electrostatic properties, and debris from sharpening, for two.)

[Ned]

CHINESE ROOTS LIE IN AFRICA, RESEARCH SAYS

ROBERT LEE HOTZ, TIMES SCIENCE WRITER

Most of the population of modern China--one-fifth of all the people living today--owes its genetic origins to Africa, an international scientific team said today in research that undercuts any claim that modern humans may have originated independently in China. In the search for human origins, in which political beliefs and pride of place can figure as prominently as fossil evidence, the genetic findings dramatically illustrate the intricate weave of prehistoric migrations and human evolution, the scientists said.
Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is the product of the Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project, a consortium of seven major research groups in the People's Republic of China, and the Human Genetics Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. It was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Detailed Genetic Profiles Created The group used the advanced tools of DNA analysis to create detailed genetic profiles of 28 of China's official population groups, which comprise more than 90% of the country's population, to better understand the roots of complex chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. By exploring the genetic relationships that exist today among so many of China's ethnic groups, the team also shed light on the ancestry of people in East Asia, who, like everyone, carry in every cell of their bodies genetic hints about their evolutionary history and the journeys of their forebears. "The contribution of this study is very significant to the literature of human evolution," said Ranjan Deka at the University of Cincinnati, who studies human genetic variation. "The findings also will have a lot of bearing in the study of genetic diseases." Until now, other researchers said, few studies of human population genetics have taken such a comprehensive look at China.

Stanford University geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza, an authority on human genetic variation, said, "It is very encouraging to see a cooperative effort of this magnitude beginning to take place in this most important part of the world, and they are to be warmly congratulated for it." In all, the Chinese government today recognizes 56 ethnic groups. Just one of them, the Han, makes up the bulk of the population, comprising about 1.1 billion people. The other 55 ethnic minority groups encompass about 100 million people spread throughout China.

To study the diverse genetic inheritance of such an enormous population, the researchers used a special set of genetic markers called microsatellites. These extremely short chemical segments of DNA mutate very rapidly. That allows scientists to use them as signposts to mark how populations diverged or merged over time, reconstructing their evolutionary journey through time and across the continents to their contemporary abodes. The scientists looked at 30 such microsatellite markers across 28 of the population groups in China and then compared the pattern to 11 other population groups around the world. The researchers demonstrated that the peoples of northern and southern China cluster into distinct regional genetic populations that share inherited characteristics. Those groups, in turn, can be divided into even smaller, separate genetic groups. Yet, overall they all are descendants of a single population group that may have migrated into China from the south eons before humans learned to forge metal tools or use a written alphabet, the new research suggests.

"Populations from East Asia always derived from a single lineage, indicating the single origins of those populations," the researchers said. "It is now probably safe to conclude that modern humans originating in Africa constitute the majority of the current gene pool in East Asia," they said. Although few scholars today dispute the idea that the earliest ancestors of the human species evolved in Africa, there still is considerable debate over how modern humanity evolved from its more primitive ancestors.

http://www.saxakali.com/Saxakali-Publications/china1.htm

[Gods Pet Monkey]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
GPM - off topic, but your signature is wrong.

It was one million, not 12 billion, and less than a decade. (The entire NASA budget for the 60's wasn't much over 12 billion).

And there are reasons to not use a pencil in an orbiting spacecraft. (graphite's electrostatic properties, and debris from sharpening, for two.)

Yeah, I had realised it was incorrect, but I just found it to be an interesting quote.

I can't even remember where I found it any more actually...