 So we're going to forego the five minute break and proceed with Ugo's talk at this point. Ugo is a native of Italy, you can go ahead and come on up Ugo, and he's a senior researcher at the Sorensen Foundation, he has his doctorate in molecular biology and studies genetics at the molecular level, both for anthropological investigations of human migration, in addition to more recently genealogical and family history work as traced through molecular biology. Okay, very well, it's a pleasure to be here, and definitely know the type of conferences I usually speak to, and so I truly hope that in the next 20 minutes I've been given to share a few thoughts about things I've been involved with and things I've been contemplating and as well as some of the latest research finding in the field of DNA, that there is something that will make a good tie into the purpose of this conference. Just as a way to begin, I am a senior researcher for a non-profit organization called Sorensen Molecular Genealogy Foundation, and I think that is very appropriate mentioning about this group, since the founder, James Lee-Voy Sorensen, passed away in 2008, founded this group back in 1999 with a vision that through better understanding of genetics and human genetics in particular in our DNA, that we could introduce a better understanding in populations, people in their minds, how closely related we are to each other, and change, kind of switch the paradigm that tend to look at each other as different, as weird, you know, that guy has an accent, so he must not be very normal or trustworthy, you know, and his goal was, you know, let's create a place where we can gather genetic and genealogical information from as many populations worldwide and demonstrate the closeness of relationship of all the individuals so that we can perhaps motivate them to treat each other differently. He was very much involved with interfaith groups, Jews, Arabs, Christians, and knowing that there is not much different from a physical, even morphological, but especially genetic point of view should, in his mind, be at the base of some of the reasoning and thinking and war peace, you know, if you want to talk about, you know, like, you know, Miss America type of message, you know, seeking war peace was really his goal. He was a true transhumanist in many way. He was seeking out to improve human life through development of medical devices, but he figured out that at the base of much of the suffering was also the fact that people did not understand each other and were not willing to cooperate and understand each other. So just to start a little bit, you know, in a nutshell, how does genetics, how has DNA information that has come forth in the last 20 years has revolutionized or changed some of the cultural traditions and religious traditions and the view of man with regard, you know, to religions or other fields. So we kind of have to go back a little bit to where does life come from. So in, yeah, this probably not a good transhumanist perspective, you know, but if we are not careful, you know, if there is not an active effort to better ourselves, the natural man would probably really tend to go this direction through evolution, actually the evolution. But the point is that where does life begin? Where does man come from and are there different races and are we that much different from each other? And one of the things I often ask pretty much everywhere I go is how do I reconcile the fact that I am a religious individual and consider myself, you know, a believer and a scientist, you know, and, you know, kind of always had that thing about my life, you know, I was a Mormon in Italy, Catholic country. I was an Italian in the United States and I'm a scientist among Mormons. So I never fit in any of the groups I've been in. So I guess, you know, I kind of get used to it. But the fact is that, you know, one of the questions, and especially as I work with colleagues and scientists around the world, you know, they, how can you reconcile the biblical text of the creation with what science is showing? And, you know, I don't know, but when you wear your scientist's glasses, you tend to read things differently, things that you have been reading for years in the Scriptures now come out a little bit different, three-dimensional, as you want to think about it. And so, you know, here there is a text from the book of Abraham, which is one of the books considered Scriptures, a scripture equal to the Bible among Mormons. And in my mind, it fit very well with a concept of evolution and creation at the same time where the gods prepared the elements or an environment in which life could come forth. So it was not the gods that create life, but they created the environment for life to come forth. And you know, where does life, you know, I mean, here there is another little comic, but, you know, in a nutshell, this is just funny, but in a nutshell, all life is thought to begin in primordial broth, where in it, the first living organism in very simple prokaryotes, cells that have very basic elements, much smaller than eukaryotic cells, which are the cells that our bodies are, for example, made of, originally it was this very simple organism, just a little bit of genetic material, very little of anything else to it. And then eventually through, that was about three and a half billion years ago, and then eventually it is organism tend to adapt, their genetic material tend to change, those that had more advantageous mutation tend to survive, those that had disadvantages mutation would be eliminated into the future generations and disappear, and that's what we call also genetic, genetic drift, which is also happening very much today. And eventually the organism got more and more complex, eukaryotic cells start appearing, multicellular organisms, eventually, here we go forth, you know, you have two organisms talking to each other and says, go forth, my sister, and explore this vast universe, and should our path ever cross again, all the stories will tell, goodbye, sister, partying in such sweet sorrow. And here it goes on their journey to evolution, you know, the same common ancestor that we had three and a half billion years ago, and on one path you start having one set of evolution, and on the other path you have a different one into the apes, and then you got a woman, and here it is what the sisters doing to each other today, right? But, you know, this is a funny take on it, but that's basically in a nutshell what we think happened in the theory of evolution, theory that is based on the fact that today you still have, in nature, this very simple organism, these prokaryotic cells are still around, and the genetic material shows that we are very much similar to any other organism, plants, or animals on the earth. So, we believe as a scientist that about six million years ago there was a common ancestor to apes and humans, and that, of course, is very much, in contrast, if you will, to the literal and more orthodox reading of the creation that you would find in the book of Genesis. So, how do you reconcile the fact that there could be hominid, people, or beings that looks like humans, being around and walking around for millions of years when the Bible says that Adam was created six thousand years ago, and so we probably notice things, we're just going to go through very quick since I don't have much time, but the word creation, as used in the book of Genesis, was a choice of wording from the English translator as now what you would find in the Hebrew translation of the Old Testament, which does not use a word that imply creation X-Nero from nothing, but more of an organization of existing material. Joseph Smith in his translation of the Bible in the book of Luke changed a verse in which man was not created, but was formed by God, which I think has a very significant difference in understanding. So, man was organized, I guess, using natural elements as the Bible says he was created from the dust of the earth. There was male and female eventually, and that because we belong to a species which reproduces sexually, and we need to have something to go on of scholar Mayosis in which each parent contributes half of the genetic material to the offspring, and therefore we need by necessity to have a male and female to create a new posterity, a new generation. And that's something interested that is very much emphasized in Mormon theology but is also found across many other cultures is that eventually to this man God put in a breath of life. And so in my mind as I read these things I see that there was two creation, two parts in the creation. One was the physical forming of the body of Adam and whoever was with him, and then there was a spiritual creation in which eventually something from God, a breath of life was put into this creature, into this human-like form. And this goes very much hand in hand with the ancient Egyptian tradition in which they have initially come out with a recipe of what constitutes a man. For those of you that are familiar with the Mormon temple endowment, there is a question that Heloim asked to Giovanni, is a man found on the earth? And he said, no, a man is not found on the earth. And if we can understand what do they mean with the word man, maybe we can understand better the concept of how man came to be. And so using the Egyptian tradition, there are nine components that are necessary to make a man the way that we understand it today. And one of that is to have a physical body, to have a brain, to have a heart, to have a shadow, to have intelligence, to have a spirit and so on and so forth. So would you still, would you call somebody that has all these components like eight out of nine, for example, everything but the spirit, would you call a man? Or would that be something similar to but not quite a man? And so what did Heloim, what did God intend when his man found on the earth, was something that had all eight of the components but missing one thing, the breath of life being there and how the creation of the physical parts came to be versus the spiritual part came to be. And so my interpretation would be that man was a creation of God just like most of the animals, but creation was being created by, that we receive the same material, the dust of the earth as horses or dogs or cats or fishes and then different and all the other creations we become, we became children of God in the moment he decided to put his spirit of man inside those physical bodies that had a different evolutionary path. So man was created as we observe them today, we are very much different from each other and that has led through the century trying to create a catalogue of humans dividing them by races which based on morphology and there are probably as many, there have been as many classification as anthropologists out there so there is a lot of discordance in the way that they try to do that but when you look from a genetic point of view we are very, very similar genetically as I say we share probably common ancestor with apes six million years ago, we share 98% of our DNA with apes, with chimps and out of the one point, but it's about 98.2% of our genome, out of the 1.8 differences that we have with chimps 1.7% are species specific differences so that's what makes us human versus apes so out of all the DNA we have which is 3.2 billion pieces of information or genetic information what makes us human and what makes the chimps, chimps is about 1.8% so not that much difference so that leaves us with a 0.1 genetic variation that is observed among humans today that's if you take a person from Africa and a person from Sweden or a person from Native American you only observe a 0.1% variation out of that variation there is about 10% of that so 0.01% is continental variation meaning that that is how much an African is really different from a European or from an Asian or from a Native American so it's extremely small amounts that we are different however if you still consider 0.1% genetic difference out of 3.2 billion pieces of DNA you're talking about 3 million possible polymorphism which is still considerable but we're not talking about large chunks of DNA or genes that are different from human to human but we're talking most often about single differences that would change the code in our particular protein and created then you know the phenotypes of being black versus being white or being straight hair versus having curly hair and so on so very very little differences now into the genealogy if you look at the numbers you know how many ancestors each human individual have today and you go back in time you see that they grow exponentially the simple mathematical rule that the average generation going back you just have to multiply by 2 and so if I go back 20 generations I would have 1 million ancestors and everybody on this planet would have the same amount of ancestors if I go back 30 generations I would have 1 billion ancestors and so that's 750 years ago considering 25 generations 25 years per generation that you see immediately there is a tremendous discrepancy between how many ancestors I can possibly have versus how many individual lived on the earth not only that you know 30 generations ago about 750 years ago it was estimated that 400 million people were on the earth so it's a much smaller number than even my own ancestors so think about 7 billion people living today times 1 billion ancestors that's the number of potential ancestors and there were only 400 million people they were the ancestors of all these people 750 years ago so we are all part of the same genetic mix in fact not only that but out of this 400 million people that lived back then probably less than 20% of them are responsible for all the people that are alive today I mean you have to grow to adulthood so survive diseases survival the problems that there were when modern medicine was not available find a mate you know have children and so on and then the other thing is that you know that did a study in Iceland where they saw using genealogical data that 80% of the population today is descendants of 20% of the population 300 years ago so there is tremendous things of genetic drift in which few people become the ancestors of everybody so we are closely related and then what we think we are the mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descendants from Nefertiti and Confucius and every one of European ancestors descended from Mohammed and Charlemagne and I did put a picture of Mohammed there I didn't want to offend anybody here you know our days you never know you have to be politically correct but that point is how do you feel that the prophet Mohammed is part of your genealogy how do you feel about people that believe in him as a prophet you know time is a killer so I have I'm really rushing through it but you know if you look at what genetic markers are used today for genealogical purposes the two there are basically three markers you can use two are straight forward the white chromosome inherited along exclusively along the paternal line father to son only male carries what makes an individual male versus a female the presence of the white chromosome so it's a great tool in genetic and population studies because it does not recombine with other genes and with other chromosomes and it comes from a straight paternal line so we know exactly which line to follow similarly we have another marker called the mitochondrial DNA which comes through the maternal line in this case both men and females have that but only woman can pass it on to the next generation that's also does not recombine with other DNA that means it stays the same almost every generation and then we know it comes from the mother and then all these other ancestors contribute different pieces of DNA that went on the autosomes the 22 chromosomes that are part of the nuclear DNA besides the sex chromosomes it is an ancestor painting of my own DNA based on chromosomal analysis 500,000 pieces of DNA have been analyzed and compared with other population as you can see on every chromosome I have a result of 100% European which is not surprise to me because as far as I can go back with my genealogy all my ancestors were from northern Italy with few exception from southern Italy but nothing else they're not surprises yet when I look at the white chromosome that I received from my father I belong to a group called Apollo Group C which is only found in Asia so there is a discrepancy right here because you know I knew I was European from the genealogical record from morphologically the way I look from my language from my tradition I know I'm also European from my chromosomal painting that I receive from this lab and yet when I look at one single marker which is my paternal line which is in western culture the most important line because it's the one to give you the surname is the one you identify yourself by that is Asian so I am Asian at least to some degree and that was a huge surprise because I was wondering how in the world I got this white chromosome from Asia in Italy in my family in my DNA here's a tree that shows all the different chromosomes groups around the world each one has a different geographic distribution based on that you can determine the migration of people about 200,000 years ago people were all in Africa and then there was a migration out of Africa the so called out of Africa theory and then the population over the continent and as you can see it's found mostly in Asia and not in Europe it has a frequency about 0.05% in Europe so it's extremely rare there was talking with Professor Stanford University that also tested my white chromosome to confirm there was no lab error he postulated that perhaps I have the residual of an ancient barbaric invasion in northern Italy probably by Attila de Han around the 5th century AD in which they came all the way the ants all the way from Asia this is the blue line all the way to northern Italy which is where my paternal family my paternal lines from and of course I have no genealogical record that goes back to 500 AD but my genetic record shows that connection to Asia so I'm European and yet I'm also Asian you know and so how does that expand my understanding of the human race and my connection we can do the same thing with mitochondrial DNA I don't have the time to explain all that but here is a tree that has myself on it and this is by genealogy my mother my maternal grandmother my father my paternal grandfather my paternal my paternal grandmother and we are here on the tree so here is me with my mother and my maternal grandmother because it's a mitochondrial DNA tree so everyone has the same mitochondrial DNA and then here is my grandfather on my paternal line and here is my dad and his mother and we are all part of different groups and we can calculate how distantly we are in time you know based on the mutation rate but what I mean what is interesting here is that all the genealogical it is my family from a street mitochondrial DNA point of view I am closely related to six strangers who have found DNA in a public database then I had to my own grandparents and so what I am saying here is that DNA is helping you also to expand the concept of family beyond genealogy beyond tradition and I appreciate that there are people out there that share things with you closely than your own family in the traditional point of view okay if I have 30 more seconds maybe we don't have the question just to tell a little bit about some of the recent stuff in 2002 the complete human genome was sequenced and since then we are having a better understanding of what of human history one of the things that we thought in the past anthropologically archeologically was that Neanderthals were our ancestors then studies on mitochondrial DNA had revealed that there was different DNA so the Neanderthals were indeed we share a common ancestor with them but we were two different species and then eventually with the genomic here and the complete sequence of DNA both of the remains of Neanderthals so we have a complete genome 3.2 billion pieces of information for the Neanderthals now as well as we have for humans and these are the places where the Neanderthals lived so Middle East, New Ancient Near East, Europe and the Black Sea area although we found recently they found some all the way to Siberia so that's even more there but they took five complete genomes of modern humans Asia, Papua Guinea, two from Africa and a French guy these are not the people that they did the DNA were just to represent the areas and this is the out of Africa so we had everybody moving to the Near Ancient East and then we had European colonization Asia and then eventually down into Central Asia and what happened is that when they compared the complete genome of a Neanderthal with modern homo sapiens they found between 1 to 4% of their DNA that was in common which was an unexpected discovery beforehand we thought we were completely unrelated to them and so what this indicates they probably archaeological evidence the modern humans like us homo sapiens we are homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals is homo sapiens Neanderthal which is a different subset of the homo sapiens group they thought it was two different species homo sapiens killer the Neanderthals now in breeding get rid of that however based on the genetic evidence we now know that Europeans and Asians share 1 to 4% of DNA with Neanderthals which indicates that probably the Ancient Near East was a hotspot for in breeding between two species and to Europe and far more Neanderthals eventually they got rid of them but this is a tremendous discovery because it changes a little bit the phylogeny here is our common ancestor back 6 billion years ago and here you have the Neanderthals and about 1 to 4% of their DNA and so what does it make of us you know it goes back to the fact that perhaps it's not just how we came to be as physical beings but how we are as spiritual beings so if I have Neanderthal DNA if I am the descendants of a eukaryotic cell that lived 3.5 billion years ago that does not matter as much as who I am as an individual in this society in my relationship to God and I love the fact that Michelangelo when painting the Sistine Chapel there was a belly button on Adam and you know why do we have belly buttons you know and that should explain a little bit that probably Michelangelo was inspiring knowing that probably there was some physical parents and many many generations before then God just say you are going to be the man with my spirit and start a new generation thank you