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Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 powerful dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago - including Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan.
The study, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in the journal European Journal of Human Genetics, examined the male-specific Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son, in more than 5,000 Asian men belonging to 127 populations.
Most Y-chromosome types are very rare, but the team discovered 11 types that were relatively common across the sample and studied their distributions and histories.
Two common male lineages have been discovered before, and have been ascribed to one well-known historical figure, Genghis Khan, and another less-known one, Giocangga. The Leicester team found genetic links via a chain of male ancestors to both Genghis Khan and Giocangga, in addition to nine other dynastic leaders who originated from throughout Asia and date back to between 2100 BC and 700 AD.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-millions-modern-men-descendants-asian.html
[Abstract]: http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg2014285a.html
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday March 11 2015, @08:13PM
They could conquer the world - and still had time to fuck around.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 3, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday March 11 2015, @08:34PM
It has only been in recent decades that rape has been considered a war crime. It wasn't even used as a charge against the Nazis after WW2. Prior to the last century or three it was fair game much of the time, and seen as a reward for the victorious soldiers as well as to permanently destroy or demoralize the conquered people.
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(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:36PM
I'm pretty sure rape has been used as a weapon for a few myriaannum.
(Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Wednesday March 11 2015, @08:47PM
Have you seen wolf of Wall Street?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:46PM
I bet that, collectively, the love conquests of all 11 of those powerful dynastic leaders still pale in comparison to the many reproductive crusades that our very own Jeremiah Cornelius has gone on in his long life.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:03PM
Yeah, but I had all of Barry White's albums, to help me out...
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 12 2015, @02:24AM
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 11 2015, @08:20PM
Adam only needed 6000 years to have 7 billion living descendants...
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:02PM
If you're going that literalist it's more like 4000 after the Flood being all Noah needed.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:15PM
Very good point. I'm sorry in out of Mod points.
Also, the population growth wasn't that high in the years when Jesus was rampaging on his T-Rex. Them dinos darn eat a lot!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:45PM
6000 years is the time frame in Sid Meyer's Civilization series so that's a subtle geek reference.
If we did start with two people back 6000 or 4000 years, how long would it have taken to get to 7 billion?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:03PM
Wouldn't a more appropriate question be how inbreed and retarded they would be if they all started out from only 2 people.
(Score: 5, Funny) by jimshatt on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:28PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fritsd on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:15AM
6000 years is the time frame in Sid Meyer's Civilization series so that's a subtle geek reference.
If we did start with two people back 6000 or 4000 years, how long would it have taken to get to 7 billion?
If you know about exponentials then the answer won't surprise you.
Well, 7 billion is 2 * 4294967296, give or take a bit, so log(7 billion) / log(2) is about 33: (1 + 32)/1.
33 doublings.
If we assume for simplicity that each generation only reproduces amongst themselves in a short timespan, and each pair of parents (*) has 2 boys and 2 girls who like each other a bit too much, and in-breeding has no negative effects, then 33 doublings == 33 generations.
33 generations is not even a millennium. If people would marry at age 25 then you could fit 40 generations in a millennium, 33 in 825 years.
I remember being taught in school that there were 4 billion people on our world. Now it's 7. When my grandmother was born, it was about 1.7 billion, looking at the graph (it must have slowed down because of the Spanish Flu, WW I and WW II).
(*) obviously this calculation model doesn't take into account polygamy or Genghis Khan
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @02:38AM
If people would marry at age 25
What does marriage have to do with reproduction? It's just a title.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday March 12 2015, @02:22PM
> 6000 years is the time frame in Sid Meyer's Civilization series so that's a subtle geek reference.
I never knew Shakespeare played Civ. (Google "as you like it six thousand", sans quotes.)
6,000 years is one of the favorite numbers that creationists (excepting the modern offshoot "Old Earth" creationists) bandy about, though some of them prefer 10,000. I gather they arrived at it by adding up the ages of one of the back-to-Adam lineages in the Old Testament.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:59PM
...what you haters fail to realize is that *nowhere* does the bible state that Adam was the only man that God created (nor was Eve necessarily the *only* woman He may have created)...
Funny fail. Ignorance, win.
Congrats,
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:27AM
The story of Lilith [wikipedia.org] doesn't seem to be biblical canon, exactly ...
(Score: 3, Funny) by art guerrilla on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:49AM
1. from the shows i see about the bible, seems like it is not *exactly* received wisdom from on high, but mere mortal, venal, stupid, lying men who made those decisions of what to include/exclude...
*and* there are many 'books' which were excluded for reasons having *nothing* to do with their so-called authenticity, but with politics, patriarchal control, and the preferences of whichever religious leader was swinging the big dick at the time...
2. um, *WHY* wouldn't the bible mention other cast members if that were so ? ? ? EU right-to-privacy laws anticipated by thousands of years ?
3. by that 'logic', we can say dog almighy also gave adam/eve (and a cast of thousands!) an ipad and a jetpack, since that isn't mentioned, either...
unless that was your point, in which case i've been played a fool...
i will now begin capering and jesting...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 12 2015, @05:47PM
...what you haters fail to realize is that *nowhere* does the bible state that Adam was the only man that God created (nor was Eve necessarily the *only* woman He may have created)...
Funny fail. Ignorance, win.
As noted above it is stated that only Noah's family was on the Ark during God's loving genocide.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @08:25PM
Seems like jus primae noctis [wikipedia.org] + primogeniture [wikipedia.org] might explain a lot of it.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:24PM
It's good to have a harem of consorts that you can lay with as you see fit. Add a few thousand years and your genes are now amply spread around. Not sure if this should come as a big surprise. While the workers work the guy at the top can spend his day spreading his genes. All it takes is that you impregnate each of them once or twice and you'll have thousands of offspring which quite frankly very quickly gets out of hand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AnonTechie on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:26AM
Isn't this happening in Saudi Arabia even now ??
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:10PM
millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 powerful dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years
4,000 years, total guess average generation 30 years (possibly an over-estimate for so long ago), that's 133 generations. Assuming just 2 kids per generation, and that's... well, that's something like 10^30 times more descendants than the current population of the Earth, isn't it?
In other words, doesn't anyone from 4,000 years ago, from King to pig-mucker-outer, have a pretty good chance of having millions of living descendants?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:33AM
Something like this was covered on QI back in 2010:
Clip [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:37AM
yes, exactly!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:40PM
Any links to the actual document from the abstract which doesn't require a login? Or better yet, can someone post the names of the 11 dynastic leaders?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:03PM
1. Genghis Khan
2. Giocangga
3. Temüjin
4. Kublai Khan
5. Egregus Khan
6. Jeremiah Cornelius
7. Ethanol-fueled
8. Nader Shah
9. Jamukha
10. Ögedei Khan
11. Khasar Khan