Human mutant abilities

This is an old blog from my days on Deviantart that I’m resurrecting here.

John Conway’s future humans and of course ‘s All Tomorrows (and Dougal Dixon’s weirdness, yes yes) all talk about human future evolution. But they’re all influenced by genetic manipulation. Not to say GM humans are impossible, but what will we get if we only consider mutation and natural selection as our forces of evolutionary change? This is a big question, and the first thing we need to do to answer it is look at that first part: mutation.

Here is a list of all the “mutant abilities” (i.e. beneficial mutations that are specific to certain populations) that I’ve been able to find. Please suggest more if you know them.

HbAS (West Africa): protection against malaria unless homozygous, in which case you get sickle cell anemia (jid.oxfordjournals.org/content… )

CCR5-Δ32 (Europe) resistance to HIV and possibly Bubonic plague (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#CCR… )

PCSK9 (sub-Saharan Africa) reduced risk of heart disease (online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/… )

Apo-AI (a small group of people in Italy), decreased risk of arteriosclerosis (clogged arteries), heart attack, and stroke (www.talkorigins.org/faqs/infor… )

EPAS1, EGLN1, and PPARA (Tibet, the Andes, and (along with CBARA1, VAV3, ARNT2 and THRB) in the Ethiopian highlands): more efficient hemoglobin (www.livescience.com/6663-tibet… ). Native Andeans also have higher heart and lung capacity (jeb.biologists.org/content/204… ). These populations have all fixed these mutations independently, and it makes sense that Ethiopian highlanders, having lived where they do the longest, have more mutations than Andeans or Tibetans.

Activated olfactory receptor genes (sub-Saharan Africans) a better sense of smell than everyone else (www.nature.com/ng/journal/v34/…)

A326G  2-SNP (Europe and Asia), Thr111Ala (Europe, western Asia, and Northern Africa), Phe374Leu (Europe),  His615Arg (East Asia): being pale, which is useful if you want to live somewhere dark but not get rickets (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sk… )

PAX9 (East Asia, North and South America), not growing or having smaller wisdom teeth, the benefits of which should be obvious. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAX9 )

G/A-22018 and C/T-13910 mutations (Europe) lactase persistence (the ability to drink milk into adulthood) (www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S… )

ADHG (alcohol dehydrogenase) (Europe) multiple copies of a gene that break toxic ethanol down, meaning it takes longer to get drunk, you sober up faster, and you’re less likely to develop clinical alcoholism (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic… )

The rs671 form of ALDH2 (southeastern China and east Asia in general) fewer pleasant effects from alcohol, more nausea, vasodilation causing alcohol flush reaction (“Asian Glow”), higher risk esophageal cancer associated with drinking alcohol. In other words, it makes you really not want to get drunk. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_… )

Several mutations to ASPM and Microcephalin genes (Europe, the middle East, and North Africa): rapid spread indicates these mutations are good for SOMETHING, and these genes seem to regulate brain development. Populations with high incidence of these mutations also tend to speak non-tonal languages (like English or Arabic rather than Cantonese or Yoruba). (scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2007/05/… )

The fusion of chromosomes 14 and 15 (in rural China), resulting in people with 44 chromosomes in total (as opposed to 46 for the rest of us). Although they are entirely human-baseline in every other way, they have very low fertility with a 46-chromosome people. They are in fact, a different species from the rest of us. (genetics.thetech.org/original_… )

Any others I should add?