Simply Science Episode 8: How Do We Know We’re Evolving?

In today’s episode, Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard University, talks to Adam about recent human evolution, during the last tens of thousands of years. By statistical analysis of human genome sequences, scientists can identify mutations in human DNA associated with various factors, such as the migration of human populations, the introduction of novel diseases, and changes in diet. Mutations that enable adaptive responses to these factors (i.e., resistance to disease) are more likely than other mutations to be passed to the genomes of subsequent human generations. Join Adam as he learns how scientists isolate and track the subtle differences among human genomes which bear clues to our recent evolution.