For Valentine’s Day, surely I can do no better than to direct our attention to Genes of history’s greatest lover found?, which, as a bonus, points the Chicago Boyz to a new weapon in our arsenal for total planetary domination:
“The really interesting find, however, would be Genghis Khan’s DNA,” [Gregory M.] Cochran[, a physicist turned evolutionary theorist,] continued. He suggested that among Inner Mongolians and the Hazaras, on whom Genghis Khan left such a genetic imprint that his Y-chromosome is found in at least a quarter of the men, there must have been a lot of inbreeding among his descendants. Yet, judging from their Darwinian success at surviving and reproducing in large numbers, that might imply that Genghis Khan had very few bad recessive genes of the kind that often damage the health of the offspring of close relations.
“Between that and the fact that he conquered most of the world, it’s fair to wonder if he was a little genetically unusual,” mused Cochran. “Of course, if you found his corpse and could extract his DNA, eventually, at some point in the future, you’d be able to clone ‘the Perfect Warrior.’ Do you think the Department of Defense would want an army of Genghis Khans?”
In fact, the U of C’s John Woods may have already found the tomb. Our genetically-engineered caste of Temujin-class warriors will CONQUER THE WORLD! BWAHAHAHAHA!
Good article, thanks for the link Jay.
The lack of dangerous recessives in Genghis Kahn probably stems from the severe conditions in which he survived and prospered. In a low tech, high risk population, individuals with only marginal genes die before reproducing. This is especially true in migratory peoples. It was only with the rise of agriculture and civilization that people with less than optimum genes could survive.
It has been long noted that hunter gather peoples intermarry with far few problems than people whose ancestors have been civilized for hundreds of years.
So rather than Genghis Khan having “super genes” it is more likely that the entire Mongolian genome is “cleaner” (and less diverse) than those from an agricultural civilized peoples.
And so I claim Gengis wasn’t French. How much you want to bet ? uh ?
So this is where someone is supposed to say:
“KAHNNNnnn!!!!”
OK, first of all, Mongolians are probably the only nation in the world which has maintained its great ancestor’s way of living and brought it to the 21st century. we have hundreds of national customs, traditional rituals which is transferred through generations, here’s one of examples of why mongolian gene’s should be unique opposed to other nation’s : Mongolian people know their family tree for at least seven generations. that way mongolians would never marry a person who’s even a farest relative. also there is almost a 100% certainty that mongolians wouldn’t marry foreigners including our closest neighbors. of course in times of our invasion and time we were being invaded a minor amount of “half-breeds” found existence, but somehow those people just perish in the majority of the nation. in mongolia people would simply say – “half-breeds” are people of lower quality as if they’re talking bout cars!
As per the tomb of Chinggis Khan, I don’t think americans or whoever will find it anytime soon, there are almost hundred different places mentioned by historians and numerologists