In the course of human history, something wonky happened to the levels of genetic diversity on the X chromosome -- scientists just can't agree on what. Two research teams reported conflicting reports about X chromosome diversity yesterday (Nov. 13) at the __American Society of Human Genetics__ linkurl:meeting;http://www.ashg.org/2008meeting/ in Philadelphia, with differing interpretations about human mating and migration. Because males only carry one X chromosome, sex-biased evolutionary forces will affect genomic patterns on the X chromosome and on the non-sex chromosomes differently. As such, comparisons of levels of variability between the different chromosomes can be used to test hypotheses about human demographic patterns. linkurl:Alon Keinan,;http://genepath.med.harvard.edu/~akeinan/ an evolutionary geneticist at the Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues compared genetic variation on the X chromosome and on the autosomes using a variety of datasets, including over 100,000 linkurl:SNPs;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/12778/ from the linkurl:HapMap project,;http://www.hapmap.org/ and large swaths of sequence data from individuals originating in West...
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