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Published online 18 March 1999 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news990318-5
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Fathers can be influential too
A rare mutation from northern Europe that has turned up throughout the population of a tiny Melanesian island has overturned molecular evolutionists’ cherished assumption that human mitochondrial DNA is inherited from the mother alone.
The assumption that mitochondrial DNA - the small DNA molecules found in the energy-producing organelles of human cells - is inherited purely through the maternal line is a lynchpin of studies tracking human evolutionary history and the movements of human populations in the prehistoric past.
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