“This is hardly surprising since most of the early [Black] pioneers of anthropology have only recently been brought to light.”

It did not take long for Firmin to question his membership in a group openly hostile to people who looked like him. Faced with such a tough environment, Firmin remained silent at meetings.

Being able to assess where some people have extra DNA and others are missing DNA, called structural variants, adds a more nuanced view of human genetics, O’Connor says, revealing more of its complexity (SN: 4/10/09).

Conversely, another study found that the very short arms of certain chromosomes, including chromosomes 13, 14 and 21, are becoming more like each other as they swap DNA.