African gene trawl may provide secrets to long life | Reuters: Researchers sequenced the complete genomes of five southern Africans over the age of 80 -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa and four Bushmen from Namibia.
'On average we found as many genetic differences between two Bushmen than between a European and an Asian,' said Dr. Vanessa Hayes of the University of New South Wales in Australia, who worked on the study reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
'This research now provides us with the tools to read the story of human evolution and specifically the story of disease evolution.'
Geneticists have long known that, on the level of DNA, there is no such thing as race.
They have also known that Africa, the source of all modern humans, also has more genetic diversity. This is probably because so many different peoples stayed and evolved there, while Europeans, Asians and other groups arose from smaller populations that migrated from the continent.
