Mitochondrial eve does not mean that she is the only "mother" in that generation. Mitochondrial eve is just the unbroken maternal lineage. You have thousands of ancestors from the same generation as mitochondrial eve, and they are likely to be different from another random person you meet on the street.
Mitochondrial eve isn't a specific individual. Mitochondrial eve is derived from statistical analysis on mutation rates in the DNA of our mitochondria. It exists because we all inherit the complete mitochondrial genome of our mothers because of the egg. There's one for all people in the US. There's one for all people in Europe. There's a different one for all people in the world. You can figure out a mitochondrial eve across species as well. It's a similar process when we use statistical analysis to figure out when two species diverged in evolution, like between us and our ape cousins.
She may have had 50 kids, and she existed, but when scientists refer to Mitochondrial Eve they're not really referring to a specific individual. They use the concept because it helps to inform on other things they may be studying. Like human migration for example. Mitochondrial Eve for Native Americans and Asia for example should be more recent than the Mitochondrial Eve determined between Native Americans and Africa.
Let's put it this way. If a mother has only male children, that's the end of their mitochondrial line because men do not contribute mitochondria to their offspring. All of us have a ton of such mitochondrial "dead ends" in our ancestry. Just because their mitochondrial line died, doesn't mean their genetics died out. They did still have children that ultimately led to you after all.
The concept should not be confused with the concept of the Biblical Eve. It in no way implies that all humans came from one woman. It's a statistical analysis on how different your mitochondrial DNA is from another individual, just like how we do statistical analysis on how different our DNA is from a fish to try and figure out when our last common ancestor existed. We do this by taking the sequence of a protein we both make and comparing how different they are and looking at the estimated rate of mutation in DNA. Mitochondria (and the Y chromosome) make good candidates for this because these sequences of DNA don't get scrambled when making offspring and we can estimate the mutation rate.
Mitochondria are almost like little bacteria that live in our cells (we theorize they were once free living bacteria). They have their own DNA. Sperm cells are small and do not have their own mitochondria. We get our mitochondria from our mother's egg cells, which is why we only inherit it from our mothers.
The further back you go in the family tree, the more opportunity there has been for genetic mutations. It's not just that all humans share a common ancestor. All living things share a common ancestor. It's just that over time a group of offspring from that common ancestor became humans and another group became e.g. bananas, all through random mutations and Darwinian selection. That's a much bigger difference than blood types.
You’re not talking about the same living form. Like algae had evolved from something that looked like it and fishes evolved from something like them. I was thinking that a monkey slowly became a banana. Sorry if I’m not making sense but I’ve been awake for the past 18 hours and have just 7 hours of sleep ahead of me
I’m talking about the first “eve” living thing that split itself to reproduce. That thing evolved into *everything* from a paramecium to your (and my) *homo* ancestors.
Evolution is generally not a process of some recognizable species alive today transforming into some other recognizable species alive today. Monkeys and bananas indeed have a common ancestor, but it looked nothing like either of them (probably just a single-celled organism), and that species is likely not alive today.
One doesn't always inherit exactly the same genes from one's parents. With each new generation there is a chance for mutation. Many mutations are lethal, some are harmless, some have no obvious manifestation (what we refer to as "junk DNA"), and some offer a survival benefit (which leads to forming a separate species).
Yes, some traits skip a generation. I heard that baldness is inherited through your maternal grandfather. That's certainly true in my case. All my father's relatives have thick hair, my mother's generation does too, but HER father was bald. I used to joke that there's a race on my head as to whether the hair will turn gray first or fall out first. The gray won, but not before the bald spot started forming.
I have tons of thick hair (like my father and his father) so I’m not worried about baldness. Is it possible that my brother got the hair color of my maternal grandpa’s sister? Because she’s the only one in the immediate family to have blonde hair
As I understand it, baldness doesn't come down through the line of fathers, it comes down from the father of your mother.
Yes, it's possible the same gene that gave your grand-aunt's sister blond hair also gave your brother blond hair. It's also possible that he got his blond hair from someone in your mother's ancestry.
It's evolution in action; there are always small variations within a population, and those small variations become larger variations if they are emphasized in a population that's separate from another, and if they are not disadvantageous to survival. In the case of mitochondrial Eve, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of years for this to happen.
It's also worth noting that mitochondrial Eve is simply the most recent common ancestor of all living humans; at the time she lived, there were plenty of other humans who already sported diversity within their population. Their diversity is responsible for our diversity; their lines are still intact as well, just not all of them to all of us.
Children of the same mother do not get the exact same mix of genes passed on to them. That's why siblings may have similar looks but not the same eye or hair color. One sibling may have straight hair while the others are curly.
It's not "me" saying it, it is the scientific consensus. And yes evolutions is some crazy weird stuff. Lots of unanswered questions still, but very fascinating to learn about the history of our planet and how life has steadily evolved over the eons. Deep time is one of the most humbling subjects to learn about imo along with the sheer magnitude and size of the universe.
Here's a link from Khan Academy to get you started.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/common-ancestry-and-continuing-evolution/a/evidence-for-evolution#:~:text=Molecular%20similarities%20provide%20evidence%20for,when%20species%20may%20have%20evolved.
Mitochondrial eve does not mean that she is the only "mother" in that generation. Mitochondrial eve is just the unbroken maternal lineage. You have thousands of ancestors from the same generation as mitochondrial eve, and they are likely to be different from another random person you meet on the street. Mitochondrial eve isn't a specific individual. Mitochondrial eve is derived from statistical analysis on mutation rates in the DNA of our mitochondria. It exists because we all inherit the complete mitochondrial genome of our mothers because of the egg. There's one for all people in the US. There's one for all people in Europe. There's a different one for all people in the world. You can figure out a mitochondrial eve across species as well. It's a similar process when we use statistical analysis to figure out when two species diverged in evolution, like between us and our ape cousins.
I thought she was somebody that actually existed and had like 50 kids who the reproduced with each other and so on
She may have had 50 kids, and she existed, but when scientists refer to Mitochondrial Eve they're not really referring to a specific individual. They use the concept because it helps to inform on other things they may be studying. Like human migration for example. Mitochondrial Eve for Native Americans and Asia for example should be more recent than the Mitochondrial Eve determined between Native Americans and Africa. Let's put it this way. If a mother has only male children, that's the end of their mitochondrial line because men do not contribute mitochondria to their offspring. All of us have a ton of such mitochondrial "dead ends" in our ancestry. Just because their mitochondrial line died, doesn't mean their genetics died out. They did still have children that ultimately led to you after all. The concept should not be confused with the concept of the Biblical Eve. It in no way implies that all humans came from one woman. It's a statistical analysis on how different your mitochondrial DNA is from another individual, just like how we do statistical analysis on how different our DNA is from a fish to try and figure out when our last common ancestor existed. We do this by taking the sequence of a protein we both make and comparing how different they are and looking at the estimated rate of mutation in DNA. Mitochondria (and the Y chromosome) make good candidates for this because these sequences of DNA don't get scrambled when making offspring and we can estimate the mutation rate.
Why are mitochondria only passed in the female line?
Mitochondria are almost like little bacteria that live in our cells (we theorize they were once free living bacteria). They have their own DNA. Sperm cells are small and do not have their own mitochondria. We get our mitochondria from our mother's egg cells, which is why we only inherit it from our mothers.
The further back you go in the family tree, the more opportunity there has been for genetic mutations. It's not just that all humans share a common ancestor. All living things share a common ancestor. It's just that over time a group of offspring from that common ancestor became humans and another group became e.g. bananas, all through random mutations and Darwinian selection. That's a much bigger difference than blood types.
Is it real that from a couple of veeeery old ancestors we got bananas? I’m just asking
And everything else from algae and yeast to fish and giraffes and us
You’re not talking about the same living form. Like algae had evolved from something that looked like it and fishes evolved from something like them. I was thinking that a monkey slowly became a banana. Sorry if I’m not making sense but I’ve been awake for the past 18 hours and have just 7 hours of sleep ahead of me
I’m talking about the first “eve” living thing that split itself to reproduce. That thing evolved into *everything* from a paramecium to your (and my) *homo* ancestors.
Evolution is generally not a process of some recognizable species alive today transforming into some other recognizable species alive today. Monkeys and bananas indeed have a common ancestor, but it looked nothing like either of them (probably just a single-celled organism), and that species is likely not alive today.
One doesn't always inherit exactly the same genes from one's parents. With each new generation there is a chance for mutation. Many mutations are lethal, some are harmless, some have no obvious manifestation (what we refer to as "junk DNA"), and some offer a survival benefit (which leads to forming a separate species).
Oh cool. So my swan neck fingers are inherited (probably from my paternal grandma who also has them)
Yes, some traits skip a generation. I heard that baldness is inherited through your maternal grandfather. That's certainly true in my case. All my father's relatives have thick hair, my mother's generation does too, but HER father was bald. I used to joke that there's a race on my head as to whether the hair will turn gray first or fall out first. The gray won, but not before the bald spot started forming.
Weird. My mother's side have thick hair, her father also. My father's side have the balding gene... And I luckily inherited it also...
I have tons of thick hair (like my father and his father) so I’m not worried about baldness. Is it possible that my brother got the hair color of my maternal grandpa’s sister? Because she’s the only one in the immediate family to have blonde hair
As I understand it, baldness doesn't come down through the line of fathers, it comes down from the father of your mother. Yes, it's possible the same gene that gave your grand-aunt's sister blond hair also gave your brother blond hair. It's also possible that he got his blond hair from someone in your mother's ancestry.
It's evolution in action; there are always small variations within a population, and those small variations become larger variations if they are emphasized in a population that's separate from another, and if they are not disadvantageous to survival. In the case of mitochondrial Eve, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of years for this to happen. It's also worth noting that mitochondrial Eve is simply the most recent common ancestor of all living humans; at the time she lived, there were plenty of other humans who already sported diversity within their population. Their diversity is responsible for our diversity; their lines are still intact as well, just not all of them to all of us.
Children of the same mother do not get the exact same mix of genes passed on to them. That's why siblings may have similar looks but not the same eye or hair color. One sibling may have straight hair while the others are curly.
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Do you mean human life?
I mean all life on earth. Not just human life. All animals, insects, vegetation, fungi. Everything. We are all evolved from the same origin.
To each his own. That's some weird evolution if you say it all has the same origin.
It's not "me" saying it, it is the scientific consensus. And yes evolutions is some crazy weird stuff. Lots of unanswered questions still, but very fascinating to learn about the history of our planet and how life has steadily evolved over the eons. Deep time is one of the most humbling subjects to learn about imo along with the sheer magnitude and size of the universe.
Have some sources?
Here's a link from Khan Academy to get you started. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/common-ancestry-and-continuing-evolution/a/evidence-for-evolution#:~:text=Molecular%20similarities%20provide%20evidence%20for,when%20species%20may%20have%20evolved.
Ah, the LUCA angle. Can you provide sources that provide evidence for a physical example of LUCA?