h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But on second thoughts...

"The descendents of Ada's son and Eve's daughters wipe the floor with everyone else, due to the genes they inherit from Ada, but all have Eve's mitochondria. In this case, the traits that made her progeny successful didn't come from Eve."

Aren't you forgetting Ada's 50% contribution to her son's genotype? Although her (passable) mitochondrial line is gone, her nucleic contribution still counts towards the 'fitness' of her single offspring.

This conversation has now been removed from peer review.

Apologies for the abrupt removal of this entry - I've had some misgivings about it over the last day or two. My intention was to write a simple, straightforward description of the hypothesys. It seems though, that this was not possible, or rather, not possible by me. Perhaps the subject demands complication - either way I don't feel up to the task - if someone would like to take up the gauntlet they're quite welcome to anything they find in this entry.
Thanks for you inout
Frogbit.

That's a pity. Don't let your failure to explain this one item deter you from writing lots more in your inimitable style. Then revisit this in a few months' time.

Seconded. Frogbit, you said you wrote this to show the hourglass idea. For what it's worth I read this entry with all the misconceptions caused by the media headlines and came away understanding the hourglass point.

Mitochondrial Eve was in fact Mitochondrial Mrs Noah v1.?.

I think the article was very good as far as the target audience was concerned, and was also an excellent starting point for deeper debates about the theory.
I hope what I wrote wasn't taken as negative criticism, since most of it was either ponderings about the wider theory, or an attempt to explain stuff to other people, and I probably wasn't the target reader anyway.

There really were only a few small points in the article that maybe needed clarification (like : was she our most recent common ancestor, or just our most recent common *female-line* ancestor).
While someone else might end up writing a more drily scientific article, I suspect it wouldn't be as accessible to the layperson.

Though there are areas of contention on the subject of mitochondria (can some be inherited from the father in rare cases, is there any kind of recombination that occurs in such cases?), that kind of discussion could easily be served by a secondary article by some other researcher, so I don't think there's much wrong with making general categorical statements that may not always be strictly correct, since this article was meant to be an introduction to the subject.

Hiya,

sorry to see you are pulling this one out of PR; seems like a lot of work has already gone in and you have the basis of a sound article. I felt the thread discussion was going ok, too, but clearly you see it differently.

For what it's worth, my advice is give it another run out before too long. Or just put it back in and let it float freely in PR for a while; what harm can it do?

seeya
spiff

Thanks fellows - after further musing I thought I might do a re-jig later today, shifting emphasis onto the hourglass idea. The thread was going fine - I pulled this entry chiefly because the new points were causing me to reconsider whether or not I fully understood the subject, and was in any way qualified to write the entry. After a nervous fit, I now feel up to the job of a re-write.
Thanks for your support,
Frogbit.

I'm glad you're now going to continue with it, Frogbit! I was also beginning to feel a bit guilty in case I'd put you off altogether. Take your time.....it can take more than just a few hours for that feeling to wear off!

Azara

Outstanding articel and outstanding discussion.
I realize that you were trying to create a simple article, but I feel some points deserve a slightly deeper look.
I feel a short discussion about nuclear DNA would help. People many not realize that mitochondrial DNA does not contribute to anything other than mitochondrial genetic expression. It's our nuclear DNA that creates the vast majority of our phenotype. Mitochondrial DNA is isolated from nuclear DNA.

I also feel that a better discussion of the role of cytoplasm at the moment of fertilization may help. Basically, Daddy only gives nuclear DNA, but Mommy's egg is where the nuclear DNA mixes. SO for a breif period the fertilized egg exists with a cell thet is almost entirely from Mommy. All Mommy's organelles are there, but none of daddy's. But when the new nuclear DNA starts to work it makes all new organelles that belong to Baby. Still, Baby doesn't have new DNA for mitochondria. The old mitochondria carry that information. Baby doesn't make its own. The old mitochondria just clone themselves over and over. They do so regardless of what kind of cell they are in (as long as they have the nutrients). Therefore since baby didn't make it's own mitochondria, it had to use clones from Mommy's old mitochondria. Strangely enough, when Mommy was Baby, she did the same thing. Because the mitochondria makes such accurate clones, of the thousands of base pairs of DNA (the rungs of the DNA ladder) you and grandma have basically exactly the same mtDNA.
So fellas, all of us Y chromosome carrying folks can forget about passing along our mtDNA to our progeny.

Outstanding articel and outstanding discussion.
I realize that you were trying to create a simple article, but I feel some points deserve a slightly deeper look.
I feel a short discussion about nuclear DNA would help. People many not realize that mitochondrial DNA does not contribute to anything other than mitochondrial genetic expression. It's our nuclear DNA that creates the vast majority of our phenotype. Mitochondrial DNA is isolated from nuclear DNA.

I also feel that a better discussion of the role of cytoplasm at the moment of fertilization may help. Basically, Daddy only gives nuclear DNA, but Mommy's egg is where the nuclear DNA mixes. SO for a breif period the fertilized egg exists with a cell thet is almost entirely from Mommy. All Mommy's organelles are there, but none of daddy's. But when the new nuclear DNA starts to work it makes all new organelles that belong to Baby. Still, Baby doesn't have new DNA for mitochondria. The old mitochondria carry that information. Baby doesn't make its own. The old mitochondria just clone themselves over and over. They do so regardless of what kind of cell they are in (as long as they have the nutrients). Therefore since baby didn't make it's own mitochondria, it had to use clones from Mommy's old mitochondria. Strangely enough, when Mommy was Baby, she did the same thing. Because the mitochondria makes such accurate clones, of the thousands of base pairs of DNA (the rungs of the DNA ladder) you and grandma have basically exactly the same mtDNA.
So fellas, all of us Y chromosome carrying folks can forget about passing along our mtDNA to our progeny.