Harvard Professor Gates is related to the cop who arrested him.

[trekgeezer]

This is an interesting turn of events.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8195564&page=1

[Allhallowsday]

Definitely interesting.   

[Rev. Powell]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.  This is a nice reminder of that fact.  I don't remember the exact degree, but I think we're all at least sixth cousins, or something like that.

[BTM]

This is an interesting turn of events.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8195564&page=1

Come to think of it, weren't like Obama and Cheney related somehow?  Thought that was weird too..

[venomx]

OMG! Wow just wow, really interesting lol.  

Maybe Godzilla and Gamera are cousins after all!

[ghouck]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.

Is this why we fight like siblings?

[Jim H]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.  This is a nice reminder of that fact.  I don't remember the exact degree, but I think we're all at least sixth cousins, or something like that.

Well, if you go back far enough we're related to every other animal on earth.  But yeah. 

Sixth cousin is way too close though...  It's more like 20,000th cousin in the most extreme cases (Australian aboriginals, some isolated mountain folk) - though just a few thousand for people of the same basic ethnic type. 

IIRC, if you're from the same country as someone (and by that, I mean an old country, like if you're Italian) you're probably within a 10-20 generation mark, something like that.

[Rev. Powell]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.  This is a nice reminder of that fact.  I don't remember the exact degree, but I think we're all at least sixth cousins, or something like that.

Well, if you go back far enough we're related to every other animal on earth.  But yeah. 

Sixth cousin is way too close though...  It's more like 20,000th cousin in the most extreme cases (Australian aboriginals, some isolated mountain folk) - though just a few thousand for people of the same basic ethnic type. 

IIRC, if you're from the same country as someone (and by that, I mean an old country, like if you're Italian) you're probably within a 10-20 generation mark, something like that.

Well, 6th cousins may be too close, but it's a lot closer to the actual degree than 20,000th. This Straight Dope article quotes an estimate of 50th cousins for the most distantly related humans.  The point is that because of that concept of pedigree collapse we're all a lot more closely related to each than our intuition would suggest. 

[Jim H]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.  This is a nice reminder of that fact.  I don't remember the exact degree, but I think we're all at least sixth cousins, or something like that.

Well, if you go back far enough we're related to every other animal on earth.  But yeah. 

Sixth cousin is way too close though...  It's more like 20,000th cousin in the most extreme cases (Australian aboriginals, some isolated mountain folk) - though just a few thousand for people of the same basic ethnic type. 

IIRC, if you're from the same country as someone (and by that, I mean an old country, like if you're Italian) you're probably within a 10-20 generation mark, something like that.

Well, 6th cousins may be too close, but it's a lot closer to the actual degree than 20,000th. This Straight Dope article quotes an estimate of 50th cousins for the most distantly related humans.  The point is that because of that concept of pedigree collapse we're all a lot more closely related to each than our intuition would suggest. 

Yeah, I've read into it a bit.  It's a pretty fascinating topic, my quote about the thousands of generations is for isolated populations, like those in certain mountainous regions or a few islanders - as well as Australian Aboriginals.  And even then, the longest isolation of a population I'm aware of is in the 50-60,000 year range (Sentinelese), IIRC.  So, probably a max separation of about 3,000 generations. 

[Allhallowsday]

Every human being is related to every other human being if you go back far enough.  This is a nice reminder of that fact.  I don't remember the exact degree, but I think we're all at least sixth cousins, or something like that.

Well, if you go back far enough we're related to every other animal on earth.  But yeah. 
Sixth cousin is way too close though...  It's more like 20,000th cousin in the most extreme cases (Australian aboriginals, some isolated mountain folk) - though just a few thousand for people of the same basic ethnic type. 
IIRC, if you're from the same country as someone (and by that, I mean an old country, like if you're Italian) you're probably within a 10-20 generation mark, something like that.

Well, 6th cousins may be too close, but it's a lot closer to the actual degree than 20,000th. This Straight Dope article quotes an estimate of 50th cousins for the most distantly related humans.  The point is that because of that concept of pedigree collapse we're all a lot more closely related to each than our intuition would suggest. 

The most interesting point of this perspective is that there were several other proto-humans that were simply selected for extinction and, so, died, and Homo Sapiens won out.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF8fnoA1VNM 

[Trevor]

 

I am actually the last of the proto-humans that AllHallowsday talked about.