Historic migration patterns are written in Americans' DNA
The following press release was issued today by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Studies of DNA from ancient human fossils have helped scientists to trace human migration routes around the world thousands of years ago. But can modern DNA tell us anything about more recent movements, especially in an ancestrally diverse melting pot like the United States? To find out, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analyzed data provided by more than 32,000 Americans as part of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project. This project, launched in 2005, asked Americans to provide their DNA along with their geographic and demographic data, including birth records and family histories, to learn more about human migration. The research team found distinct genetic traces within many American populations that reflect the nation's complicated history of immigration, migration, and mixture. Writing in the American...