February 27, 2013
Breaking Bio is a new podcast from a group of biologists, about biology, science, the academic life, and any other topic that takes our fancy (which can be a pretty wide list). Having started as a joke on Twitter, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and we always have fun. So, come join us!
The hosts for this episode:
Steven Hamblin – Postdoc at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. (link, twitter)
Bug Girl – Entomologist and evil administrator at an undisclosed location. (link, twitter)
Morgan Jackson – Fresh-faced Ph.D. student at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. (link, twitter)
Rafael Maia – Ph.D. student in biology at the University of Akron in Ohio. (link, twitter)
Tom Houslay – Ph.D. student at the University of Stirling in Scotland. (link, twitter)
Guest for this episode:
David Winter – Evolutionary Biologist (link, twitter)
In episode 19, we dissect the Sasquatch genome paper with David Winter (@TheAtavism). Spoiler alert: still not real.
If you have $30 to burn and you just can’t find a lighter, you can purchase the Sasquatch paper yourself. But trust us, it’s not worth it. Someone else did it so that you don’t have to.
Sharon Hill of Doubtful News summarizes David Winter’s conclusions on her blog here: Breaking bio on the Ketchum Sasquatch sequences
So, as Winter notes, he’s not sure if the researchers are inept or deliberate in their interpretation but some of the DNA is perfectly matched to humans and the rest is “crap”. Some of the sequences, he said, were far too short to be the result of hybridization, making Ketchums claim of hybridization from 15,000 years ago not plausible.
Contamination remains the obvious question. It’s not that the samples were contaminated necessarily by the collector but that the sample itself was a mix. So, no matter how careful they were in the lab to prevent investigator contamination (as Ketchum insists), the damage was already done if it was junk to begin with.
Conclusion? Bad.Doubtful News
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Forensic Science, Pop Culture, Sasquatch