Kelong's nicks for some footballers

van Nistelrooy - van horse
Rooney - looney
Cruoch - bamboo stick
Lampard - leading lamp
Alumnia - aluminiumLehmann - lemon
Woodgate - kayu (Malay for wood)
Beckham - Backstreet boy
Oliver Kahn - kingkong (can call him orang utan also)
Ballack - ballast
Luiz Ronaldo - fat Ronnie
Ronaldinho - Ronnie horse
Robinho - Robin Hood
Baptisa - baptised
Messi - messy
Raul - lousy

All in the family, all around the world

Yvonne Lim
yvonne@newstoday.com.sg

AT A time when racial divisions are flaring up once again around the world, one ambitious project to map the genetic family tree of humanity is underlining the fact that we are all cousins — "just separated by 2,000 generations", as Dr Spencer Wells puts it.

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As the director of the Genographic Project, Dr Wells and his team already know, from genetic evidence, that there is an "Eve" — one woman who lived 150,000 years ago in Africa from whom every living woman today is descended.

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Then there is the African "Adam", a man who lived 60,000 years ago, whose Y chromosome, which is passed only from father to son, marks every male today.

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Now what the five-year non-profit project — a collaboration between National Geographic and IBM — aims to do, is map out what happened between then and now.

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To do so, it is inviting anyone to send in DNA samples to find out what surprising lineages they may share with others. The results show the likely paths one's ancestors took over the 150,000-year migratory journey.

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Since its launch in April, more than 60,000 of the US$99.95 ($170) test kits have been sold to the public — the original aim was to collect about 100,000 DNA samples.

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Said Dr Wells in an interview with Today in August: "We're selling something like 1,000 or 1,500 kits a week ... The public seems to be fascinated by this kind of research and we're pleased with the response."

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DNA samples — in the form of cheek swabs that participants take themselves and mail to the testing lab — are analysed for two types of genetic markers. In men, their lineage is traced via the Y chromosome, while women trace their genetic heritage through Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed from mother to offspring only.

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Such genetic "footprints" undergo mutations over the years, and each set of mutations that happen at the specific time and place in history, and end up marking a group of individuals, is known as a haplogroup.

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Broadly, each haplogroup — which is named for an alphabet — marks one particular migratory route across the globe. Haplogroup H, for instance, is found in about half of all Europeans, whose ancestors thousands of years ago moved there from Asia.

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But as this journalist found out when she tested her DNA, a lesser known branch of H also stayed in Asia. Colleague Margaret Thomas found her material lineage marked her with the haplogroup F, which is found in Eastern China, South-west Asia and Japan.

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"The key, take-home message from the search for Adam is that we all spring from a common source and, therefore, we're all more closely related than we ever suspected," said Dr Wells, a population geneticist.

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Another segment of the project focuses on indigenous populations, such as aboriginal tribes, whose DNA contain genetic markers that are key to understanding ancient migratory patterns.

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Proceeds from the public project are channelled back into a fund to support the preservation of such indigenous groups, some of whose cultures are disappearing.

Do i look like i fit these genes?

Always dreamed of being Irish – and now I'm smiling

SOME people wish they were movie stars, geniuses or born beautiful — I always wanted to be Irish.

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It would take too long to explain that odd obsession, so let's just go with the flippant explanation I gave a Caucasian gent in an Irish (what else) pub: That I must have been Irish in a past life, or some wandering Celt had insinuated his way into my Chinese family bloodlines.

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His response was a scornful laugh and a "you wish!"

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So, when the results of my mtDNA test came back recently, giving me some scientific hope of an ancient Celtic connection in my 150,000-year-old genetic family tree, I mentally flashed that doubting gentleman a rude gesture.

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Delighted as I was, though, I was baffled as to how I could belong to the haplogroup H — to which half of all Europeans belong. This mutation of the genetic code also appears in many North Africans and Middle Easterners, as well as on the Northern India and central Asian population fringe — but I was sure several generations of my mother's family were firmly rooted in China before they sailed here.

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It seems I wasn't the only one surprised. My sample was "unique" to the project's database thus far, I was told — even though H was the most populous haplogroup, by 3 to 1, apparently.

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What this is likely to mean, is that my a branch of H is from the "very well understudied" Asian branch of haplogroup H, noted Mr Bennett Greenspan, of Family Tree DNA.

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It turns out, ironically, that the Haplogroup H first appeared in Asia some 40,000 years back. But while one bunch of descendants carrying this genetic variant upped and left for Europe — where they dominated the largely unpopulated continent — another bunch stayed behind, "living with and among other Asians" and thus, never forming a large cohesive group "as the Western branch of H did".

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And unlike its European brethren, the Asian H branch has been much less researched "primarily because most research of this type has started in Europe".

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So if some ancestor of mine managed to father half of Europe, why aren't any of my features even vaguely Caucasian?

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Said Mr Greenspan, "The way someone looks, is only tightly linked to someone in the first few generation of when two different peoples have children. After four to six generations, the appearances that we notice in humans — the part above what we call 'skin deep' — isn't recognisable.

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"Take the Chinese Jews from Kaifeng, who, when the British arrived in the 1800s, all appeared to be Chinese because the community had been marrying among its Chinese neighbours for at least a few centuries and the Middle Eastern appearance had been totally lost."

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Now that's something my mother ought to read. For years, I have been irked by her apparent unquestioning acceptance of the notion of "pure" Chinese blood — and the mild disparagement with which she viewed a relative's marriage to an Indian or an ang moh.

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She is not so much a racist as a product of a generation that believed in such things as the integrity of traditions and family bloodlines (she did marry a Peranakan man, but I suppose that fell within acceptable boundaries).

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I suppose the issue is this: How, even today, we define ourselves by race, when it is nothing more than an ephemeral set of skin-shallow characteristics.

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And as science can now show, at the genetic level, a sallow-skinned, dark-eyed woman of Chinese descent can have more in common with a pale-skinned, blue-eyed European than one thinks.

It doesn't matter what my IC says ...

This 'Anglo-Chinese' does not want to be defined by race

Some 30 years ago, a fortune teller gazed at my palm and said, among other things, that I was closer to my mother than to my father.

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This puzzled me because by all accounts I was (well, I still am), in appearance, temperament and outlook, much more like my English-Welsh father than my Straits Chinese mother.

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A few weeks ago, when I saw the results of my mtDNA test and read the explanatory notes, I immediately thought of that fortune teller.

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The mtDNA analysis shows me to be a member of haplogroup F. This, in the elegant language of the report, is the "final destination of a genetic journey that began some 150,000 years ago with an ancient mtDNA haplogroup called L3".

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Haplogroup F, the National Geographic report added, is primarily an Asian group, with the lineage found in Eastern China, South-west Asia and Japan.

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So, I asked myself: Is that what the fortune teller meant when he said I was closer to my mother than my father?

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To Mr Bennett Greenspan, president of Family Tree DNA, a partner of the Genographic Project, I put these questions: So, what's happened to my Caucasian blood? Why has it not shown up in the test results?

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It's quite simple really — mtDNA is genetic material that mothers pass on to their children. Their daughters will, in turn, deliver it to their children, but their sons do not pass on mtDNA to their offspring.

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So, my mtDNA test correctly shows my maternal lineage to be Asian — but there is, of course, no trace of my paternal origins. Paternal lineage is traced through the Y chromosome that men pass on to their sons.

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So while in person and in personality, I may be more like my father, it's my mother's ancestry I carry evidence of in my mtDNA.

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This triggers another memory. Sometime in the 1980s, I decided to act upon a matter that had annoyed me for a long time — the "Race" field that we have on our Singapore identity cards.

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My IC said my race was "English" and I felt that if the state insisted on identifying us by our racial origins, then it should at least do so accurately.

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So, I called the appropriate department and spoke to the person in-charge. After registering my objection to having "Race" on our ICs, I launched into my spiel about giving due respect to my mother's lineage and so on.

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The civil servant listened patiently and when I was done with my haranguing, he said: "So what would you like us to put as your race?"

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"Ah," said I in some surprise, not having expected such acquiescence, then added, "Anglo-Chinese would be the most accurate, I suppose."

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"Let me check," said he, and I heard sounds of a drawer being opened and pages of a file being flipped.

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"Yes, that's okay," he pronounced.

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And so, my IC these days says that my race is "Anglo-Chinese", which is a lot better than "English".

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But does it really matter what my IC says? It is my Singaporean nationality that I identify with most. It is my mother's Peranakan sub-culture — the cuisine, the patois, the folklore — that I am most familiar with. I cannot and do not wish to define myself by race.

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All the more so when, looking at my mtDNA test results, I learn that my maternal lineage, while ostensibly Chinese, traces all the way back to "Mitochondrial Eve" — the common ancestor of all human beings, who was born some 150,000 years ago in Africa. And if I had a brother, his paternal lineage would trace back to Adam — the male common ancestor, who was born in Africa some 60,000 years ago.

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Perhaps, I should see if I can get that "Race" field in my IC card changed to "Afro-Anglo-Chinese".

The eight wonder of the world

The eight wonder of the world

That 0.1% difference in DNA makes all the difference

THE first genetic "map" of human diversity was published yesterday by scientists who described it as a landmark achievement that would revolutionise medicine, reported The Independent..More than 200 researchers from six countries have spent three years and around $250 million deconstructing the human genome to discover the precise genetic differences between people..Whereas the human genome — the basic genetic blueprint — shows that 99.9 per cent of genes are shared by everyone, it is the 0.1 per cent difference that can hold clues to illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, dementia, heart disease and cancer..Scientists have completed the first phase of an ambitious project to tease apart these minute differences to try to explain why some people develop serious diseases while others with a similar lifestyle remain healthy..The map of human diversity could also be used to identify patients who respond better to certain drugs, as well as explaining the evolutionary origins of humankind by shedding light on the ancient migrations of our ancestors from Africa.."This represents a milestone for medical research," said Dr David Altshuler of Harvard University, one of the leaders of the team to draw up the genetic map, published in the journal Nature. He said that the map provides a powerful new tool for exploring the root causes of the many common diseases that have a genetic as well as lifestyle component..The scientists built up the map of genetic diversity from a detailed analysis of the DNA from 269 volunteers drawn from four different ethnic groups — the Yoruba tribe from Nigeria, residents of Tokyo, the Han Chinese from Beijing and European Americans from Utah..By painstakingly comparing the smallest possible mutations in each of the volunteer's DNA, the scientists produced the first comprehensive catalogue of human genetic variation..Dr Panos Deloukas, a senior investigator at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, said that a map of such differences will ultimately prove invaluable in understanding the many life-threatening diseases affecting people today.."Humans are genetically 99.9-per-cent identical. It is the tiny percentage that is different that holds the key to why some of us are more susceptible to common diseases such as diabetes and hypertension or respond differently to drugs," Dr Deloukas said..The researchers estimated that the study will increase by 20-fold the speed at which it is possible to search for the genes responsible for disease.."This report describes a remarkable step in our journey to understand human biology and disease," said Prof Peter Donnelly of Oxford University, a senior member of the research team..The study — which was funded by governments and private industry — is available at www.nature.com..The human genome is like a recipe for making a man or woman and is composed of three billion individual "letters" that make up the long genetic code written within our genes..When the full sequence or map of the human genome was published it was clear that 99.9 per cent of the code was identical for all people of any ethnic group in the world..But the 0.1 per cent of the code that is different not only accounts for why people look dissimilar — it can also explain why each of us can have different destinies in health.

The story of our common ancestor, Lucy

The scientists traced back our female ancentry using mitrochondria DNA, since we inherited them from our mothers and grandmothers and great-great-great-great-granmothers. The earliest female traced back was a female kingkong called Lucy. From her skeleton, it was believed that she walked on two legs but then sometimes walked on 4 legs in order to run faster. Using carbon dating it was estimated she was 3 million years old. Her life story continues in the next paragraph.

Lucy was born in Eygpt about 3 million years ago in a tribe of 5 kingkongs. (Eygpt was a grassland at that time) She loves to eat dates, bananas, grapes, apples, leaves and small insects (ants, mosquitoes, fruitflies). She wasn't a particularly active or agile kingkong, spending most of her time on trees and her haystack house. However gender role was already known at that time and Lucy was expected to build, maintain her tree house and take care of her children. The male kingkongs are expected to collect gather food from other trees. Her tribe was mainly vegetarian, they don't eat meat with the exception of insects. Lucy have a rather happy and contented childhood.

When Lucy turned 10, she found a boyfriend Zeexa, mate and "married" with him. Like her Zeexa was a vegetarian also. Although Lucy still maintains close ties to her family after marriage, she had moved to a new tree house with her husband. Several years had passed and her parent tribe had died off due to tuberculosis. She was smart enough to move away from them in fear of getting this dreaded disease. Unfortunately her husband also died soon with the same disease and she was left with 4 children. She was very sad about her husband's death, but decided to move on and find a new husband.

She had travelled several kilometres to another place full of kingkongs. She brought her children found a new tribe of kingkongs which is the kongkong tribe. The kongkong tribe sees her as a invader and use branches to poke her. She explained that she lost her husband and was very lonely. The leader kingking decided to accept her into their tribe.

However, this tribe has very different characteristics from her. They are very strong and agile as compared to her. They are aggressive, whereas she is gentle. They are omnivorious and are meat loving. They lived in caves whereas she used to live in trees. It was very different from all the other kingkongs she know and she say "Oh my God!". When the kongkongs are having their meaty meals of wolves, fishes, antelopes, zebras etc, Lucy was sitting aside eating fruits the male kingkongs collected. However her children are rather adaptive and follow the kongkongs to eat meat. Kingking decided to invite Lucy over to eat their meals with them. He cut off a portion of meat for her. She looked at the meat, smell and licked it, and then say "yuck!" and went back to eat fruits. Since Lucy was one of the few females in the tribe, the tribe decided to acoomodate her strange behavior and diet.

Several years have passed she gave birth to 3 more baby kingkongs. The original children of her former husband also grown up to become adults. However, the weather turned for the worse and many trees and animals died from the drought. The kongkongs decided to shift to explore for new lands and find new food sources. Hihi saw across the Nile river there were a lot of trees but were rather far away. He alerted the tribe to move to that land. So the tribe follow Hihi across the river one by one, Lucy's children also crossed the river. Her children, Zee Zee and Hee Ha also asked her to crossed the river, but she was reluctant as she was pregnant and rather heavy. After much thought, she can't bear to leave here children alone so followed them. However, as she was too clumsy and heavy because she was pregnant, she was washed by the currents of the river and drowned.

Introduction to kingpanzee

Kelong Management Private Limited presents a genetically engineered kingkong called Kingpanzee. Kingpanzee is a cross between a human and chimpanzee. He looks like a chimpanzee but behaves like a human. Kingpanzee walks runs on 2 legs, can climb trees, do acrobats performance and pluck durians. He can understand and speak both kingkong language and human language. The current version can only speak English as a human langauge to people. He eats all sorts of food but preferably the vegetarian ones, like rice, noodles, bread, bran, bananas, oranges, coconuts, durians, tomatoes and leaves. But the food he like most is durians that's why kingkong_zee angry he can't eat durians in peace. Its favourite meat is roast chicken. Like any living human, it can cry, laugh, scream in pain, tickle or stroke people, swear, bleed, and reproduce themselves. He also can think and learn from his past experience. He has a special ability to grow 0.1 cm of fur a day when well fed. He is a rather hygenic animal even more so than many people keeps his fur clean by washing in the rivers or drains, and even know how to use soap. When stepped on feaces he will wash himself ferociously to remove the smell and dirt.

Kingkongs in visa advertisement

kingkongs in advertisementsOne day a couple of businessmen and women drove through the amazon forest with 10 heavy luggauges of coffee beans. When the leader kingkongking see the truck coming by the smell a very fragrant smel from the truck. So he tell his fellow kingkongs : "lets steal the luggauges. Inside must have shiok stuff. " So the kingkongs swing about the lianas and took the lugguages one by one. A lady found something amiss behind and turn around to see the luggauges are gone. She saw the kingkongs grinning and say hihihi. The man inside the truck got worried because he need to sell the coffee beans to the factories to process. The lady flash a Visa card and call the banana tribe trader who's plantations is several kilometres away. She asked the kingkongs to return the lugguages but the refused. So she wait for the truck to come. Half an hour later the banana truck came and unload one lorry of bananas. The lady pay the outstanding charges by Visa card.

Then the kingkongs being contented by eating bananas decided to return the lugguages to the couple.The key was also retuned,and the lady hugged Kingkong_zee,and he feel so contended ,n shiokkkk,so full without eating any bananas. n bananas all finished up by kingpanzees, after the lady, kingkong feel so hungry with tears...see chio-bu forget his meal..

Kingkongs in Sarawak

Kingkongs in the Semeggoh Wildlife Rehabitation centre respond to the friendly call or forest rangers. "kentang, ayam, roti, banana, osama, koala..."One by one the primates swing by in all their golden furred glory, many about the height of an eaverage man. Edwin, a kingkong who knew our ranger Hillary very well blew him a kiss and winked at a chio tourist."That is becaus he is in a good mood. Its hard to tell with this kingkongs. Once a big sized monkey pulled me up and swang me from tree to tree. Luckilly he didn't let me go, but I don't hold it against him. They are moody kingkongs." said Hillary.ayam and roti, two other kingkongs that came out of the forests to meed tourists, dug into the "tea spread" of bananas and sweet potatoes brought by Hillary. About 30 minutes later, they went back to the forest to continue life in the wild. End of kingkong show.

Kingkong and the zookeeper

One day, kingkong_zee was shot by a zoo keeper using tranqulisers and he *fainted. The zoo keeper transport a sleeping kingkong_zee to Singapore using a SIA cargo plane. kingkong_zee was sent to Singapore Night Safari for display. When kingkong_zee wake up he found himself at some unfamiliar place which looked much less forested and smaller than the place he used to live. He was angry and shout "grr kong kong! grrr roor roor!" at the zoo keeper. Initially during his stay he was rather hostile towards the humans throwing twigs and stones on them. Unlike the other kingkongs in the safari he prefer to eat durians and rambutans, instead of bananas. When given bananas he threw at the zoo keeper's face. After several years of aclimatising to the safari he become much more tamed and started to behave like a human laughing at a joke, screaming in pain and cry when sad. He learnt sign language and communicate with the zoo keepers and people in sign langauge. kingkong_zee also learn how to do maths problems and speak in simple English.