Dr. Sykes Explains How They're Going To Help Discover Bigfoot


The Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project, led by Dr. Sykes and Michel Sartori is currently cataloging purported Bigfoot/Yeti samples sent in by people from all over the world. While it's exciting to know that their study could lead to the discovery of an unknown hominid, the science behind is also quite intriguing. A recent article by BBC News delves into the finer points of the project and explains they're going to find out whether Bigfoot is real or not.

The team have put a call out for people around the world to submit samples to the team before September, along with theories about what they could be. They then plan to use DNA barcoding to test each specimen. It is a technique that is widely used in biology. For example it is used by food inspectors to check what is served up on a plate is what a restaurant says it is. Customs officials also use it to stop trafficking of illegal animal parts, whilst field biologists use it to identify organisms. In all cases the technique is largely the same. A sequence of DNA is extracted from an organism or sample of interest and then compared against a DNA bank.

In the case of the Collateral Hominid Project, the team will largely focus on hair samples – the most commonly presented physical evidence to back up claims of sightings.

“Up until the last couple of years, you needed quite a lot of biological material … and often the results were inconclusive,” said Sykes. “Now, all we need is a small amount of hair.”

Hair is useful because the keratin – a kind of biological plastic that encases the hair shaft - protects the DNA that it contains from the contamination and degradation that can affect DNA from other parts of the body, such as teeth and bone. Once they have extracted a sample, the will compare it to the billions of sequences published online, such as at Genbank (managed by the National Institutes of Health in the US). If the sequence is different to those known from existing species it may be a new species. The more DNA that is used, the more reliable the comparison.

‘Hidden from view’

But even if the team find a sequence of DNA that has no match in the world’s databases it does not automatically mean that the creature is a mythical beast, says Albert Zink, an anthropologist at the European Academy of Bolzano in Italy who questions the validity of the whole enterprise. “It could be a sample of an extinct animal that has nothing to do with the Yeti myth,” he explains.

Sykes admits that might be the case but he is unconcerned. Although the search for Yeti DNA grabbed the headlines, it is part of a bigger project charting the relationship between our own species and others. It could even help identify new species of hominid - a general term archaeologists and paleontologists use for humans and our ancestors. The team want to use the samples to narrow down their search for unknown species – alive or dead, mythical or not. If the DNA tests find something of interest, the thinking goes, the team can began to look for other clues – potentially in the area where the sample was found. Cryptids became involved because, along with unstudied primate species and subspecies of bears, some people believe the legends could describe distant relations.

"Theories as to what Yetis are... range from surviving collateral hominid species, such as Homo neanderthalensis or Homo floresiensis, to large primates like Gigantopithecus, which were widely thought to be extinct,” says Sykes.

[via www.bbc.com]

Comments

  1. Neander nepholis... Or, Neander nephilis... Nephilim... Ate humans but became extinct after humans began hunting nephilim... Neander man also known as bigfoot by some... Over 30,000 y, neander, nephilim, bigfoot evolved taller with help from ET... Not working out well for ET... Modern man had had help along the way also... Its a battle for who will be the best apex predator. Them or us, led by powers not seen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Crazy man walking..........

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    2. Why are you LOL? The statement above has about as much fact as anything on this site, basically, no fact.

      Delete
    3. two different ETs, one group helping us(cf 2001,Clarke) the other helping the big foots...pawns all we be.

      Delete
    4. Veru well could be true as anything else... The Nephilim and BF connection is not a stretch.

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    5. The OP makes a lot of good points here. There has obviously been outside intervention in the evolution of Bigfoot. I can see no other way that they could've developed their keen paranormal powers.

      Delete
  2. I am sure the science and results will be beautiful whichever way the coin drops.

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    Replies
    1. Well, beautiful or not, the first post is correct in that more is play in the past and present concerning the entire spectrum of discussion than our science will prove. In other words, after we prove Bigfoot, what next? Are they Neander or wtf..

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    2. Yes they're people, primitive hominins and the species is new/unknown we don't know them from before and the reason is the whole subject's been covered up with both governments and planted scientists in bed together writing history as it pleases them. It's all about keeping the status quo, for the government it's religion for scientists it's fear of being proven wrong. So the coin is constantly being passed along to the next guy.

      Delete
  3. ITS A GODAMN SHAME THAT A FOREIGN UNIVERSITY WAS COURAGOUS ENUFF TO TAKE A STAB AT THIS BIGFOOT PHENOMENA...SHAME ON ALL YOU AMERICAN AND CANADIAN SCHOOLS!!!

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    Replies
    1. Not just that, the BBC article was well written and seemed to give all sides equal space for comment unlike most of American media outlets.

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    2. That's because they are not only investigating Bigfoot but the Yeti and maybe other related hominids too.

      Bigfoot type creatures are not just a North American phenomenon.

      I wonder if they take Australian Yowie samples too?

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    3. There is no Yowie. The Yowie is evidence that the wildman of the woods is a popular worldwide myth, and therefore evidence against Bigfoot. The Australian landmass separated from Asia proper millions of years before anything resembling a primate evolved. If anything resembling a primate evolved from some primordial mammal in Australia it would be an unprecedented case of parallel evolution through several taxa.
      There can be big foots and yetis, but there is no Yowie.

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    4. dude man got to Australia in two waves dating to 50,000 and 30,000 years ago from Indonesia so could a parallel primate(hominid) such as Yowie.

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    5. Definitely yes, the Yowie is there too without a doubt. It's basically man's religion standing in the way of discovery, no one's interested in re-writing such a big chapter of history and evolution.

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  4. How much bear, coyote, and human samples do you think they will get? I am really hoping for some good unknowns, but i am pretty sure they will get lots of the others too. Not trolling, just thinking out loud.

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    Replies
    1. Any right minded person would not take your post as trolling. You could bet the farm that close to 75% (or even much higher)of the samples "attempted" to be submitted to the study were known creatures. Now, the "approved" samples selected for further study is what will be interesting.

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    2. Actually he is right on the money and not trolling. Unless you pluck hairs from a live critter you have no way to know precisely what animal your hair sample come from. Luckily we can determine fairly quickly whether it is a known animal sequence or not. Cost is the only limiting factor in testing lots of hair samples. If they manage to get nuclear DNA then we will know lots but the mtDNA is enough for now. The results will be interesting, which ever way it goes.

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    3. I luv to pluck womens hairs out from in between my teeth.

      Delete
  5. Yesterday under the Hearn article I made a reference to the "Kitakaze suit bombshell" thread on the BFF. I called the guy a liar; honestly my feeling was he was parodying the Ketchum study with his never ending promises to reveal the suit,soon.
    On the chance he reads this blog I want to apologiize for calling him a liar in my comment, as today on the above mentioned thread, Bill Munns has confirmed he found something of relevance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That guy is a master storyteller. He's got Munns fooled too. Mark my words 2-5-10 years from now, he will not have produced a documentary or the suit. Bank on it.

      Delete
    2. BFF must be getting slow if you losers have to come over here and troll your garbage to try to get people to come look at your thread.

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    3. Anon 453: I'm not a site owner, or even a poster. I just like to read Bigfoot stuff on the web and occasionally make references to items others might be interested in.
      Anon 453

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  6. Bill Munns has Kitakaze all figured out. Kit is basically fooling himself into thinking Patty is a suit and that he just needs to find the suit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Munns is a regarded hero in this field now that other guy a jealous liar losing.

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  7. So what happens if the government has already sequenced BF DNA and entered it into gene bank as a fictitious human reference sample? All sorts of conspiracy theory stuff could be in play for all of you paranoid types.

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  8. "Dr. Sykes Explains How They're Going To Help Discover Bigfoot "...or not.

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  9. What I would really like to see if a posting everytime they get something worth studying instead of hoarding the knowledge to themselves until a "paper" is released.
    You know allow everyone to see what is going on along the way instead wait until the paper is released.
    Chad W

    ReplyDelete

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