MEMO COPY -- historical era human evolution firmly documented yet again

[Kent Paul Dolan]

in talk.origins appears,
Oh, my, how inconvenient for the creationists.

More evidence has been gathered that evolution
_does_ apply, even to humans, and has been observed
by researchers to have occurred in modern times.

This is a result creationists dread, since the main
impetus for creationism, disputing that humans are
just another kind of ape, falls if evolution in
humans is confirmed.

Gene protects brain-eaters
from mad cow-type disease

Villagers in the highlands of Papua New Guinea
who ritualistically ate human brains but did not
die of a brain disease called kuru have a
genetic mutation that protects them, researchers
said Wednesday.

Their study of the unusual cannibalistic
practice shows evolution in real time in the
human population, and might lead to a treatment
for similar brain-wasting conditions, the
researchers reported in the New England Journal
of Medicine.

Kuru once wiped out entire generations of women
in remote Papuan villages. It was traced to a
now-defunct mortuary ceremony in which women and
children ate the brains of their dead relatives.

Dr Simon Mead of the University College London
Institute and colleagues found that women in
these communities were more likely to live to an
old age if they had the protective gene. Women
without the gene died young of kuru.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5AH5ZY20091118

Watch the creationist worms wriggle for the
amusement of the saner participants here, once
again.

xanthian.