FLICKR, BOB DORANWhen a Texas-based forensic services company last year declared it had sequenced the genome of the elusive Sasquatch, scientists demanded data. This week, the team behind the claims published a paper in a journal that they appear to have setup themselves, and the results are far from convincing.
The paper, which appeared in the newly created DeNovo Journal of Science, describes how Melba Ketchum and colleagues at DNA Diagnostics, Inc. subjected more than 100 samples sent in from various sites around North America to mitochondrial DNA analysis and whole genome sequencing.
The authors wrote, “DNA analysis showed two distinctly different types of results; the mitochondrial DNA was unambiguously human, while the nuclear DNA was shown to harbor novel structure and sequence.” They concluded that “the data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendent of modern humans.”
However, geneticists who have seen the paper are not impressed. “To state the obvious, no data or analyses are presented that in any way support the claim that ...
