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| Britain |
| Warlord may have 3m descendants |
| 2006-01-18 |
| SCIENTISTS in Ireland may have found the countryâs most fertile male, with more than three million men worldwide among his offspring. The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in 12 Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fifth-century warlord and head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland. His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16m descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research. âItâs another link between profligacy and power,â Bradley said. âWeâre the first generation on the planet where if youâre successful you donât (always) have more children.â The research was carried out by PhD student Laoise Moore, at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity. Moore, testing the Y chromosome which is passed on from fathers to sons, examined DNA samples from 800 males across Ireland. The results - which have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics - showed the highest concentration of related males in northwest Ireland, where one in five males had the same Y chromosome. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #10 "In those days it really was good to be king." Only if you, um, uh, get off on sex, lol. So many seem to be working so very very hard to deny that they do, or that they're permanently wired for it, these days, lol. Tip: Darwin 1001 sez abstract your animal drives into oblivion -- and fade out of existence accordingly... and the proof lies in the birth-rate articles we see so often... |
| Posted by: .com 2006-01-18 15:26 |
| #9 A distant cousin decided to trace back our family tree and went as far as a bastard son of one of the pagan viking king Haralds. (There were several kings of the same name and she didn't know which..) So I looked for the translated SAGAS on these guys and, after reading, told her to quit bragging. All of northern europe had to be decended from these "swingers". In those days it really was good to be king. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-01-18 15:12 |
| #8 It's good to be the king! |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2006-01-18 15:00 |
| #7 This speaks less to his, uh, productivity than to the dominance of the Y gene in heredity and the testosterone it delivers. If there have been 80 generations since this fellow was around it takes only 1.2 males per generation to reach 3 million today. What this speaks to is how many didn't make it in the past. Even the great Jenjis Kahn is at 1.51 males per generation. Let's hope Jenjis Kerry doesn't have that type of persistence. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-01-18 11:17 |
| #6 How many descendants has ol' Ibn Saud by now? |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2006-01-18 11:01 |
| #5 Sure gives new meaning to "f-ing around". |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2006-01-18 10:40 |
| #4 I'm not sure I believe anything from the Smurfit Institute of Genetics. Everything they work on comes out small, blue, and irritating. |
| Posted by: CRS 2006-01-18 09:49 |
| #3 Known in the US as the 'Arkansas factor.' |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-01-18 06:28 |
| #2 He conquered Ireland--and got biz-zaaay! |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-01-18 06:18 |
| #1 Millions of descendents - wow, that's called fucking power, heh. Sorry, bad pun. Hmmm, I wonder if they tested for Big Willy of the publicity-shy BackDoorMan Tribe how many hits they'd get... |
| Posted by: .com 2006-01-18 03:36 |