5A Kendall Thomas Bigfoot

image_description = "An artist's interpretation of Bigfoot." document.write(''); An artist's interpretation of Bigfoot. CREDIT: Karl Tate, LiveScience Infographic Artist View full size image In November of last year, a Texas veterinarian made national news claiming that genetic testing confirmed that not only is the legendary Bigfoot real, but is in fact a human relative that arose some 15,000 years ago. The study, by Melba S. Ketchum, suggested such cryptids had sex with modern human females that resulted in hairy hominin hybrids: "Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens," Ketchum said in a statement. The scientific community was rightly skeptical, partly because Ketchum's research — which spanned five years — had not appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now the study has finally been published, kind of, and it raises more questions than answers. The piece, written by a team of researchers led by Ketchum, is titled "Novel North American Hominins: Next Generation Sequencing of Three Whole Genomes and Associated Studies" and published in the "DeNovo Scientific Journal." The study, which used 111 samples of alleged Bigfoot hair, blood, mucus, toenail, bark scrapings, saliva and skin with hair and subcutaneous tissues attached, were collected by dozens of people from 34 sites around North America. Hairs were compared to reference samples from common animals including human, dog, cow, horse, deer, elk, moose, fox, bear, coyote, and wolf, and were said not to match any of them. [Rumor or Reality: The Creatures of Cryptozoology] The report concluded, "we have extracted, analyzed and sequenced DNA from over one hundred separate samples... obtained from scores of collection sites throughout North America. Hair morphology was not consistent with human or any known wildlife hairs. DNA analysis showed two distinctly different types of results; the mitochondrial DNAcm was unambiguously human, while the nuclear DNA was shown to harbor novel structure and sequence... the data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendent of modern humans." DNA Sampling So what can we make of this? The most likely interpretation is that the samples were contaminated. Whatever the sample originally was — Bigfoot, bear, human or something else — it's possib

So what can we make of this? The most likely interpretation is that the samples were contaminated. Whatever the sample originally was — Bigfoot, bear, human or something else — it's possible that the people who collected and handled the specimens (mostly Bigfoot buffs with little or no forensic evidence-gathering training) accidentally introduced their DNA into the sample, which can easily occur with something as innocent as a spit, sneeze or cough

Though the study claims that "throughout this project exhaustive precautions were taken to minimize or eliminate contamination" in the laboratory, the likelihood that the samples were contaminated in the field by careless collection methods, normal environmental degradation, and other factors was not addressed. In some cases the person(s) submitting the alleged Bigfoot sample also contributed a sample of their own DNA to help rule out contamination, but the possibility of DNA contamination by others (such as hunters or hikers) could not be ruled out