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Manbeast DNA Investigations & Discoveries Incl Sykes, Ketchum

chockfullahate

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7525060.stm

'Yeti hair' to get DNA analysis
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News, Oxford



The microscope revealed 'the yeti' suffered from split ends
Scientists in the UK who have examined hairs claimed to belong to a yeti in India say that an initial series of tests have proved inconclusive.

Ape expert Ian Redmond says the hairs bear a "startling resemblance" to similar hairs collected by Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary.

He told the BBC the Indian hairs are "potentially very exciting".

After extensive microscope examinations, the hairs will now be sent to separate labs for DNA analysis.

They say that the tests on Thursday were a "process of elimination" in which the hairs from India were compared with hairs from other animals known to live in the area around the Garo hills of the north-eastern state of Meghalaya.

The little known Indian version of the legendary yeti - or abominable snow man - is an ape-like creature called mande barung - or forest man.


We are very excited about the preliminary results although more tests need to be done

Ian Redmond

The BBC was given the hairs by passionate yeti believer Dipu Marak, who retrieved them from a site in dense jungle after the mande barung was allegedly seen by a forester for three days in a row in 2003.

Mr Marak says the hairs may provide compelling evidence of the existence of a black and grey ape-like animal which stands about 3m (nearly 10ft) tall.

There have been repeated reports of sightings over many years by different witnesses in the West, South and East Garo hills.

Mr Marak estimates the creature weighs about 300kg (660lb) and says it is herbivorous, surviving on fruit, roots and tree bark.

Sophisticated microscopes

Preliminary test by the scientists in the UK have not so far disproved his belief.

"We now know for definite that these hairs do not belong to Asiatic black bear, they do not belong to a wild boar and they do not resemble hairs from various species of macaque monkeys. These hairs remain an enigma," said wildlife biologist and ape conservation expert Ian Redmond.




In pictures: 'Yeti' hunt

"Another thing I can confirm is that if these hairs do indeed belong to a yeti then they - like human beings - suffer from split hair ends!" he joked.

The tests were carried out at Oxford Brookes University in central England with award-winning primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells from the university's anthropology department.

Using some of the most sophisticated microscopes in Britain, the hairs were magnified up to 200 times and then compared with a database of other hairs provided to Mr Redmond from Oxford's Natural History Museum and the primatology department at Oxford Brookes University.

To make the results as definitive as possible, the scientists took a cast of one of the two hairs brought over from India using nail varnish.

"When the varnish dries the mould which it forms creates a much better two-dimensional image of the cuticle scale pattern than the hair itself," explained Ms Nekaris.

Disagreement

After the test were completed, Mr Redmond - who is also a senior consultant for the UN's Great Ape Survival Project - and Ms Nekaris were able to rule out the "obvious candidates" to whom the hairs might belong.

Mr Redmond said that on first glance, the hairs from India had the same cuticle pattern to hairs brought back to the UK by Sir Edmund Hillary and donated to the Natural History Museum.
 
Thing is, Cryptic hair (and droppings) have been sent for analysis for ages - and they always seem to come back "inconclusive".

Because you can only compare them to the known DNA - as soon as it is "unknown" DNA, there is no conclusion as no one can determine what that DNA is! You can only prove the positive ("Tapir DNA"), but no one will stand up and say "Yes, this is Yeti DNA". :roll:
 
Zilch5 said:
Thing is, Cryptic hair (and droppings) have been sent for analysis for ages - and they always seem to come back "inconclusive".

Because you can only compare them to the known DNA - as soon as it is "unknown" DNA, there is no conclusion as no one can determine what that DNA is! You can only prove the positive ("Tapir DNA"), but no one will stand up and say "Yes, this is Yeti DNA". :roll:


True enough. Unfortunately, the only thing that will persuade the skeptics is for a Yeti (or any other cryptid) corpse to turn up, or a live Yeti capture. Even then, I'm sure scientists would be arguing over whether the critter is a human in a monkey suit. :lol:
 
Or maybe monkeys in a human suit? :lol:

Anyway, a different take on the same story from the "MX" Newspaper - a rag handed out to Sydney train commuters for free:

yetihair.jpg
 
I could be wrong,but I thought DNA could only be found from the hair folicules not the hair itself?
 
AFAIK that used to be the case, but things have progressed a lot recently.

Personally, I'll reserve judgement until we get some sort of result. As has been said, we get these announcements periodically, but then they seem to just fizzle out.
 
Zilch5 said:
Thing is, Cryptic hair (and droppings) have been sent for analysis for ages - and they always seem to come back "inconclusive".

Because you can only compare them to the known DNA - as soon as it is "unknown" DNA, there is no conclusion as no one can determine what that DNA is! You can only prove the positive ("Tapir DNA"), but no one will stand up and say "Yes, this is Yeti DNA". :roll:

DNA analysis may be used not to find the species of its owner, but to find to which species it is related. It may be used to find if it comes from an ape, a monkey, a perrissodactyl, a rodent, a bear, etc...

Wasn't there an analysis of Bigfoot DNA, which could not be linked to any mamal family?
 
The single hair that could FINALLY prove the Yeti really exists
By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 8:19 AM on 01st August 2008

He is 8ft tall and has a roar that could start an avalanche.
Despite this, the yeti has always managed to remain abominably elusive.

But yesterday, claims that the legendary beast really does exist took a giant step forward.

Scientists have used microscopes to analyse of strands of hair found caught on some rocks in jungle near the India-Bangladesh border.

The tests showed the thick, wiry hairs do not belong to any of the most common wild animals known to live in the area.

Instead, they bear a 'startling resemblance' to some collected half a century ago by Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary.

Researcher Ian Redmond said: 'The hairs are the most positive evidence yet that a yeti might possibly exist. It might be that the region this animal is inhabiting is remote enough for it to remain undiscovered so far. We are very excited.'

The 54-year-old primate expert said that he and his Oxford Brookes University colleagues had ruled out the possibility of the hairs coming from animals known to roam the area, including black bears, macaque monkeys, dogs and wild boar.

'The hairs are complete with the cuticle [?], and between 3.3cm (1.3in) and 4.4cm (1.7in) long and thick and wiry and curved,' he said.

'We haven't found a match with the most likely contenders,' he said. 'But there is a resemblance with the hairs brought back by Sir Edmund Hillary. There is the exciting prospect that these could turn out to be something very dramatic.'

DNA tests could help solve the yeti mystery. Mr Redmond said: 'Even if the DNA test cannot identify the creature, it should be able to work out what it is related to. It could easily be an unknown primate even if it is not a yeti.' However, he admitted that his excitement at a potential scientific breakthrough was tinged with fear.

'My concern is that if we do find something unusual, it will be from a very small population of animals and I would want to talk to the state government and Indian government so they are not inundated with people trying to catch one for a museum,' he said.

'I want us to approach this in a 21st-century and not a 19th-century way.' Whatever the hairs' origin, their owner, like humans, suffers-from split ends, the tests showed. The hairs were found in the remote West Garo hills in the Indian state of Meghalaya, caught in rock on a steep slope where the ape-like creature may have been sunning himself. In 2003, a forester claimed to have seen a yeti there three days in a row.

The first authoritative description of the yeti was made in 1889 by British explorer Major LA Waddell.

Describing his experiences in Sikkim, he wrote: 'Some large footprints in the snow were alleged to be the trail of hairy wild men believed to live among the eternal snows.'

In 1921 a Royal Geographical Society Everest expedition found footprints made by 'a wild man of the snows' at 21,000ft and led to the creature being dubbed the ' abominable snowman'.

Since then, the yeti has eluded detection despite numerous attempts to find it. Perhaps the most thorough of all was the Daily Mail expedition of 1954. A team of scientists and mountaineers, supported by 200 Sherpas, scoured the Himalayas for months. They failed to spot a yeti, but unidentifiable footprints were noted.

A monster mystery

Tibetan folklore has it that the yeti is nocturnal, whistles, and can kill with a single punch
Actor James Stewart reportedly smuggled remains of a yeti by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to London in 1959

Investigators believe that at least two types of yeti exist: the dzu-teh ('big thing'), which is 7ft-8ft tall, and the nich-teh, which is 5ft-6ft

A yeti foot measures 33cm in length and 25cm across - if footprints found in the Himalayas last year were of the elusive beast

The yeti's name derives from Tibetan and means 'rock bear'

Yetis resemble orangutans - and orangutan fossils have been found near Himalayan foothills

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... xists.html
 
i am beginning to think jimmy stewart is the key to the yeti/sasquatch/whole of cryptozoology.
 
I'd rather butter you up but I bring bad news.

'Yeti hairs' belong to a goat
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News


Scientists in the US who have examined hairs claimed to belong to a yeti in India say that in fact they belong to a species of Himalayan goat.

They say that DNA tests on the hairs - obtained from the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya - show that they are from a goat known as a Himalayan Goral.

The rough-haired creature has a grey-brown coat and is between 95-130cm (37-51in) in length.

It was not previously thought to roam so far south of its known habitat.

Those who believe in the existence of the little known Indian version of the legendary yeti - or abominable snow man - say it is an ape-like creature called mande barung - or forest man.

The BBC was given the hairs by passionate yeti believer Dipu Marak, who retrieved them from a site in dense jungle after the mande barung was allegedly seen by a forester for three days in a row in 2003.

'Interesting result'

"We always knew that the link between the sightings of the Indian yeti and the finding of the hairs was purely circumstantial," said ape expert Ian Redmond who carried out a preliminary series of tests on the hairs earlier this year which proved inconclusive.


We may not have found a lowland yeti but we have still made a modest discovery
Ian Redmond

"Nevertheless, the DNA test is an interesting result because the reported location where this sample was collected is way south of the known range of the Goral species, which is said to live between 1,000 to 4,000 metres up in the Himalayas.

"Perhaps we have a more modest discovery - extending the known range of the goral rather than confirming the existence of the lowland yeti," he said.

Mr Marak said that the hairs could have provided compelling evidence of the existence of a black and grey ape-like animal which stands about 3m (nearly 10ft) tall.

"While these results are discouraging, it does not affect my firm conviction that there is a yeti-like creature out there," he said. "It has been seen too often for it to be dismissed as nothing more than a myth."

'Startling resemblance'

In recent years different witnesses in the West, South and East Garo hills of Meghalaya say that they have seen the creature, which Mr Marak estimates to weighs about 300kg (660lb) and is herbivorous, surviving on fruit, roots and tree bark.





Scientists said that initial microscopic tests on the hairs were "potentially very exciting" as they bore a "startling resemblance" to similar suspected yeti hairs collected by Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary.

After the microscope tests, the hairs were sent to a lab in the US for DNA analysis. By a "process of elimination" the hairs from India were compared with hairs from other animals known to live in the area around the Garo hills.

The first series of tests were carried out at Oxford Brookes University in central England with award-winning primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells from the university's anthropology department.

Using some of the most sophisticated microscopes in Britain, the hairs were magnified up to 200 times and then compared with a database of other hairs provided to Mr Redmond from Oxford's Natural History Museum and the primatology department at Oxford Brookes University.

After the tests were completed, Mr Redmond - who is also a senior consultant for the UN's Great Ape Survival Project - and Ms Nekaris were able to rule out the "obvious candidates" to whom the hairs might belong.

However the hairs were then sent to the US for further tests where the link with the goral goat was established.


Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Dipu Marak shows what he believes are the yeti hairs

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/s ... 666900.stm
 
Thank you - saved me a deal of bother there :D.

Seriously, though, I agree the output is patchy - however I'd heard the forest fire story years before this site even appeared, and that neither Coleman nor Meldrum (IIRC) had dismissed it altogether.

As for the DNA thing, I know next to sod all about it, but Dr Melba Ketchum is in herself well-respected. For probably the best overview of the sequencing, see Cryptomundo - given that Loren got a little singed himself over the Biscardi fiasco a year or three ago, he's being cautious now, but even he gives this a guarded welcome. For the sake of balance, a slightly more sceptical thread on the same subject here, which Loren confesses a little confusion.

These are people with hard-earned reputations. Let's see what happens.
 
The skeptics on the subject are as steadfast and obsessive as the believers. They spend countless hours decrying the myth to the point that objective observers may think that they suffer from far worse mental disorders than those who see Bigfoot in every photo with trees.

http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/ ... stence-of/

I can see myself in that comment.

I’ve looked around about this and Stuneville this is a weird one, and not terribly pleasant. Looks like I’m not the only one who wondered if there isn’t something odd going on here.

http://www.zimbio.com/Tom+Biscardi/arti ... y+Theories

One of the names mentioned there appears in the original DNA article that you posted. Also your page’s main author, Citizen Smith, is mentioned on my first link.

Here;
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2011 ... er-1-2011/

We have them both together in a way which I find more than a little odd and contradictory again possibly deliberately so. I think that it’s possible to wonder if there is something to the sense of suspicion that I and others seem to feel.

Dr Melba Ketchum is in herself well-respected.

I agree she’s been on a few episodes of The Monster Hunter
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4372255/
Also I checked her out on Pub med. She’s co-authored a few papers. What's she actually said though, directly first hand.

Honestly I don’t really know how specific to be with this one, for the board, in a North London sanguivore sort of way.

As for the burning Sasquatch that’s a different story I remember this coming up here about two years ago. Of the two names you mention I would only take any notice of one of them. I’ve tried to find an author for the recent link, is it one of the people who’ve come up. Either way it’s impossible for the reasons I gave.
 
Well, again in the Cryptomundo threads, the presence of Biscardi and Lindsay (well spotted with the Wolfie comment!) is questioned. The mere mention of Biscardi especially makes most commentators reach for the solpadeine.. seems like, as with Beckjord before him, he'll find a way of inveigling himself into any potentially big development - and again, his presence sets the sceptical alarms off by default, regardless of the venerability of anyone else involved.

Also, of course, Oldrover, you and I hold opposing views to start with - I believe in the flesh-and-blood existence of Sasquai (can't stop using that word, now :)), whereas you do not. I respect your right to hold an opinion, just as you respect the rights of others to do the same. For that reason, perhaps it would be best that in this instance we largely ignore the bandwagon that's being generated, and just keep watching the skies to see what concrete evidence comes forth, if indeed any.

As always, I'm optimistic, but I'm not betting my house on it. Not just yet, anyway 8).
 
I agree as far as this goes I think it's important to stick to what Ketchum herself says, rather than any 'leaked information'.

I'd like to know just exactly what it is she is involved in, I've come across different versions, one of which just said she was carrying out tests for someone else. Too much smoke at the moment.
 
There are leaks and rumors that Dr. Melba Ketchum's study has found that Bigfoot is a "relic hominid" known to science, but thought to be extinct.
It has passed peer review according to reports, and is preparing to publish.
 
There have been nothing but rumours regarding Ketchum and her studies.
 
I've read the "relict" rumours as well. However, as agreed earlier in the thread, we'll hang on until Dr Ketchum actually publishes. If it has actually cleared peer-review, then that's great, but that's a very big "if".
 
Ketchum is rapidly gaining support from folks in the Facebook community about pushing for a law that would make it illegal to shoot or kill a sasquatch. There were some questions from people about her new group and why she's introducing species protection when her paper hasn't been published yet. In her reply, she says that the paper "is close enough" that she felt it was time to get protection:
http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/dr-melba-ketchum-bigfoot-dna-paper-will.html
 
Interesting stuff....

Sasquatch in Siberia? Hair found in Russian cave 'belonged to unknown mammal closely related to man'
Hair did not belong to any known animal from the region such as a bear, wolf, or goat
Mysterious mammal more closely related to man than to monkeys



Astonishing claims were made in Russia today that DNA tests on suspected 'Yeti hair' reveals the existence of 'an unknown mammal closely related to man'.
The 'tests' were conducted on samples of hair found in a Siberian cave during an international expedition last year.
'We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human,' said Professor Valentin Sapunov, of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute.
Nor did the hair belong to any known animal from the region such as a bear, wolf, or goat, he claimed.
Analysis was conducted in the Russia and US and 'agreed the hair came from a human-like creature which is not a Homo sapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey', said the Siberian Times, citing claims made on a regional government website in Russia in the area where the hair samples were allegedly found.

It stated that long-awaited scientific tests were conducted on their hair at two institutions in Russia and one in Idaho in the US.
'All three world level universities have finished DNA analysis of the hair and said that the hair belongs to a creature which is closer by its biological parameters to Homo sapiens than a monkey. The Yeti's DNA is evidently less than one per cent different to that of a human.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ammal.html
 
Could be a translation error, but should we be concerned that whoever wrote this didn;t know the difference between a monkey and an ape... which is what I presume they meant.
 
Still, unknown primate is a good start. Normally, as we've observed before, when samples are obtained in expeditions it's reported that they're sent to labs various for examination, after which we usually hear precisely nothing ever again.

As for the monkey/ape thing, as one of the labs is in Idaho I doubt the phrasing is accidental - I read it as implying and unknown non-human ape. What it doesn't say is whether they've compared the sequence with the other great apes - you'd assume they would have.

I wonder where this will go next? Still awaiting Melba Ketchum's findings..
 
Does anyone believe any of this ever happened?

Firstly the man who supposedly collected the hairs knows nothing about it;

The tests were undertaken on hair found one year ago in the Azasskaya Cave in the Mourt Shoriya area of Kemerovo region in Siberia, it was alleged.
The 2011 expedition to the remote cave complex in Kemerovo when the alleged Yeti hair was found was led by Dr Igor Birtsev, seen as Russia's leading advocate of the existence of the abominable snowman.
He last night questioned the conclusions saying he was seeking more information about the alleged tests.

Another point is that the so called remote cave complex, was in fact according to Meldrum, who gave a talk outlining his concerns about this whole buisness, a well traveled and publicly maintained local tourist spot;

http://doubtfulnews.com/2011/10/america ... eti-event/
 
oldrover said:
Does anyone believe any of this ever happened?

Here are a couple of articles which shed more light on it. Draw your own conclusions I suppose :)

Incidentally, as far as I know, there's no distinction in Russian between 'ape' and 'monkey'. So I would blame the translator here.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/arti ... 70738.html

'Yeti Fur' Found in Siberian Cave
30 October 2012 | Issue 5004
By Jonathan Earle
There's a high likelihood that hairs recovered during a state-sponsored expedition in a southern Siberian cave came from a yeti, a prominent Russian cryptozoologist said Tuesday.

Valentin Sapunov, a professor at the State Hydrometeorological University in St. Petersburg, told The Moscow Times that DNA analysis and examination under an electron microscope had led him to be "60-70 percent" certain that the hairs belonged to a yeti-like creature.

The fur was recovered during a trip to the Azassky cave in the Kemerovo region, part of a yeti conference held at the initiative of Governor Aman Tuleyev last October.

Attendees included yeti enthusiasts from around the world as well as former heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuyev, who was then a candidate for a State Duma post, which prompted Nina Ostanina, a Communist Duma deputy from Kemerovo, to dismiss the event as a publicity stunt.

Yeti buffs also criticized the expedition as a PR ploy.

"There was no expedition. The conference participants were accompanied by the press on a field trip to a cave site. It is my opinion that the 'evidence' found in the cave was unreliable," said Jeff Meldrum, a biologist at Idaho State University and cryptozoologist.

Meldrum, who took part in the expedition, added that the footprints in the cave, a "short line of right feet only," were not convincing, and the "nest" of ferns had never been slept in.

"There was no other sign of occupation in the cave, except a few empty soda cans and snack food wrappers," he wrote in e-mailed comments to The Moscow Times on Tuesday.

Meldrum and Sapunov are part of a handful of professional scientists actively searching for abominable snowmen, whose existence is denied by the mainstream scientific community but who continue to captivate the imagination of enthusiasts worldwide.

Based on the evidence accumulated over decades, Sapunov said he's now "95 percent" certain that the creatures are real.

His latest announcement was hailed by the Kemerovo regional government in a press release. Tuleyev has promised a 1 million ruble ($32,000) prize to anybody who can present an actual yeti.

Arkady Tishkov, deputy head of the Academy of Sciences' Geography Institute, suggested in an interview with The Moscow Times last year that the yeti conference could attract tourists.

Some 1,000 yeti sightings have been claimed in the former Soviet Union. They range from the Caucasus to Siberia and more recently also in the Kirov region northeast of Moscow, where a yeti was said to be discovered in the Vyatsky forest.

Sapunov said he wasn't discouraged by skeptics, arguing that there was more evidence for the existence of yetis than for many of the other 5 million documented species, some of which are recognized on the basis of a single bone, he said.

He also attested to the scientific value of searching for an elusive object. "Every science needs its yeti," he said, noting that Fermat's Last Theorem spurred advancements in mathematics for more than 350 years before it was solved in 1995.

The original story's here too, with plenty of pictures:


Yeti - the best proof yet or an elaborate hoax?
By The Siberian Times reporter29 October 2012
DNA 'tests' of hair supposedly from a Yeti in a Siberian cave show it comes from an unknown mammal closely related to man, it was claimed last night.

The alleged findings were revealed on the official website of a regional government in Russia.

It claimed that two tests were carried out in Russia and one in the US. These had agreed the hair came from a human-like creature which is not a Homo sapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey, it was reported.

'We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human, and not the animals known to the area where they were found, like a bear, or wolf, or goat, or any other animal,' Professor Valentin Sapunov was quoted as saying.

'It was a branch of our university in St Petersburg that carried out a DNA test, and the Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. The tests were performed by laboratory of electronic microscopy and laboratory of molecular genealogical classification.'

The tests were undertaken on hair found one year ago in the Azasskaya Cave in the Mourt Shoriya area of Kemerovo region in Siberia, it was alleged.

'All three world level universities have finished DNA analysis of the hair and said that the hair belongs to a creature which is closer by its biological parameters to Homo sapiens than a monkey. The Yeti's DNA is evidently less than one percent different to that of a human.'

Giving strangely scant details, the report claimed that the cave hair was divided into three lots - 'one was sent to a laboratory in Moscow, another to a laboratory in St Petersburg and the third was sent to an Idaho laboratory'.

There has been speculation previously that some people in Kemerovo - where there have been many alleged sightings - sought to exaggerate tales about the Yeti to boost tourism in southern Siberia.

Azasskaya Cave where the expedition worked in year 2011 and where amazingly the footprints and hair were found. Picture: The Siberian Times

Perhaps significantly, an academic known as Russia's leading expert on the 'abominable snowman', Dr Igor Birtsev, played down the new 'findings'.

He had led the 2011 international expedition to the remote cave complex in Kemerovo when the alleged Yeti hair was found.

'I doubt that they have indeed managed to carry out a DNA test on Azasskaya Cave hair, and doubt that they found how close the Yeti is to humans by its DNA,' he was quoted as saying.

'It has not been done anywhere in the world. I take it that they've worked with electronic microscopes, but have they compared it to other samples? I am not sure. So I am rather sceptical about Valentin Sapunov's conclusions.'

Bizarrely, too, the report on the regional government website claims that Yeti are intuitive about impending disasters.

They 'leave the area where they are about to happen. Like with the earthquake, the animals are somehow able to get connected to the information channel from the future,' states the story with no explanation.

'If scientists manage to explain how exactly the Yeti manages to obtain this information channel and feel what is about to happen.....mankind would develop the way of the most exact forecasting of the future and would be able to know about coming disasters well in advance'.

It is understood results are also awaited from a rigorous DNA test in the UK.
 
She has a history of playing this up, but refusing to release additional - or any real information. I'm with you, I'll believe it if and when the full study is public.
 
I for one am not buying the modern human / hominid idea for the creation of a whole species.
I'm also wondering what has happened to the Russian data. No further word on it.
 
Well, I dare say the good doctor's findings will be published in the relevant scientific journals, rigorously peer-reviewed by the scientific community, and ultimately accepted as a revolutionary, yet incontrovertibly sound, addition to our understanding of the evolutionary process.

(Either that, or it will just turn out to be the usual tedious, unsubstantiated cryptozoological bullshit..)
 
lordmongrove said:
I for one am not buying the modern human / hominid idea for the creation of a whole species.

Cryptomundo has a longish thread with various pro and con arguments, here.

Extracts of two posts that stand out to me:
semillama:

Here’s the giant red flag about all this. Anyone who’s taken a high school biology class that taught basic genetics should spot it. For Sasquatch to have purely human mtDNA, and for that to result from a hybridization event 15,000 years ago, then the remaining female breeding population for the entire species must have been completely wiped out, leaving ONLY the females from the hybridization event. This would suggest a catastrophic bottleneck that may have left only one group of breeding creatures, with ONLY females with the human mtDNA. This population would then have to make its way over to North America and populate the continent after the retreat of the glaciers. How much more likely is that the sample was contaminated with human mtDNA, perhaps from Melba Ketchum herself?

Another issue is that for a “hybridization” to take like this, the male has to come from an undefined member of the Homo genus. But the physical characteristics described for Sasquatch, especially the foot anatomy, strongly suggest to me that the genus is not Homo, but another type of hominin or even a primate that independently evolved bipedalism...

..As I’ve said before, the results must be duplicated at another, independent laboratory for any DNA analyses to hold water when attempting to provide evidence for a controversial species. The whole Ketchum affair is just too problematic to take at face value.

on the flip side, as to why in 15,000 years the species may have changed so much:
CDC:

We are years away from understanding, but this paper if, if it passes peer review, will take a huge step into answering the questions in many directions.

Dr Ketchums findings actually make sense.

There were many Genus-Homo, some I am sure have not been found as yet.

Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis are closely related to each other and have been considered subspecies of Homo sapiens. Both lived in Europe and Asia.

If remnant populations of these Genus Homo migrated east following the same path Homo sapiens used, it is conceivable that they bred with those same Homo sapiens

It would prove some Native American stories as fact, tribes of Giant Forest People, that were to be avoided and respected.

If a species is dying out and mates cannot be found, the only option is to seek other similar species to breed with…it is simply nature’s driving force to continue a species.

In Florida now, python species are breeding amongst each other as released pet pythons of different breeds are finding that the only other options than extinction. The result is mixed breed giant snakes…Rock python + Indian Python = a giant python

Mixed breeds often create larger offspring, example tiger and lion mix

A species of Homo on the verge of extinction, finds Homo sapiens to breed with and the species lives on. The very first Americans here were all the were available to breed with and descendants of that breeding are what may be the “species” we call Bigfoot.

The latter makes sense to me, certainly.

What isn't yet clear is whether these finding have actually been peer-reviewed or not. Some say they have, others that they haven't - and it's kind of crucial. I think we're just going to have to wait for Ketchum's full report to be published.
 
lordmongrove said:
I'm also wondering what has happened to the Russian data. No further word on it.
Also on Cryptomundo, there's some interesting stuff on that from Igor Burtsev himself, who "broke" the findings, commenting on his motives here:
I have received a question:

I have one question, what motivated you to share what you did today?
… and that you simply didn’t understand that you weren’t supposed to release the information until the American Journal first published the results.

I’m answering.

We waited a couple of years the scientific publication by Dr. Melba Ketchum. But scientific magazines refuse to publish her manuscript which deserves to be published. And I want to remind some facts of the destiny of scolars in our field.

Before the First World War our zoologist Vitaly Khahlov described the creature, named it Primihomo asiaticus. He send his scientific peport very circumstantial, thorough to the Russian Academy of Sciences. And what? The report was put into the box, and had stayed there till 1959, about half of century. Until Dr. Porshnev found it and published…

Dr. Porshnev himself had written a monograph “The present State of the Question of Relict Hominoids”. It was issued in 1963 by the Academy of Sciences in some 180 copies only, for a special use. Only after a half of century (again!) it was publishe 1n 2012 in 2500 copies…

In 1960s Mongolian Academician Rinchen had sent the skull of supposed almas to Poland, becaus our anthropologists refused to study it. Poland’s anthropologist made a sculptural portrait of that creature, Rinchen called it Homo sapiens almas in 1960s. But – it has been forgotten till last years… Again half a century!

I don’t want the new discovery (not the first one, but the next one) to wait for another half a century to be recognized by haughty official scientific establishment!

That is why I broke the tradition, did not let this acheavement to wayt for next half a century to be recognized. No matter of the publication in the scientific magazine, people should know NOW, what bigfoot/sasquatch is.

As I know, one third of population of the USA believe in exuiosting of these creatures. And they deserve to know WHAT THEY ARE.

Further, later on that thread, there's a good counter point to semillama's comment I cited in my previous post, re the mitochondrial DNA issues:
JE_McKellar

The interesting result here is how she compared the samples to human mitochondrial DNA, and came up with a match, and a recent match at that. “Hybrid” might sounds too sensational for my tastes, but basically it means that we’re talking about a population of hominins that interbred with human (females) about 12k years ago. That means that the original Sasquatch was a close cousin of modern humans, maybe a derived Homo erectus. This original population, though, suffered some sort of bottleneck or catastrophe right around the onset of the Holocene, right when many other large mammals were suffering catastrophic population declines. The survivors, though, interbred with human women and their descendents grew and spread into the modern Sasquatch population.

Old World Sasquatch/Almas/Yeti populations might have gone through a similar bottleneck and interbreeding with modern humans, or they might have been a single population of Sasquatch that spread out from the Bering land bridge. DNA testing of Eurasian samples should help us figure that out, so I assume that Burtsev is eager to get funding for that next stage of the project, and grew impatient with the delays from the scientific press.

Of course, Melba’s findings need to be replicated, but further testing needs to be done comparing the Sasquatch DNA with Neandertal and Denisovan samples, and the experts need to start looking for known human gene variants within the Sasquatch pool. In short, even if this report about Melba’s work proves true, it’s only the first step in a very long process.

So, yeah - exciting for those who either believe or are on the fence, but for those who actively don't there's still no reason to change their minds.

We've a long way to go before this is played out.
 
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