Leonardo da Vinci’s Y chromosome shared by living family descendants

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-leonardo-da-vinci-dna-chromosome.html

24•bookofjoe•4mo ago

Comments

catlikesshrimp•4mo ago

It is interesting that the average age of conception in the series is 33 years (21 generations in 700 years) It seems an old age, historically.

The age of coming of women in my country was 15 years old. I think it was common in Latin America. The age of consent is now 16 yo. In Colombian is 14 yo, I think.

p1esk•4mo ago

What was the average age of conception for the last child?

catlikesshrimp•4mo ago

We only know the average of the age of conception of the group of male descendants trace. I explained why I fancied the average age lower. What do you think could make it actually higher, hypothetically?

p1esk•4mo ago

It depends on how many kids his descendants had. If it were, say, five kids on average, and we are tracing an average descendant, then the age of conception of child #3 can well be 33 years old.

apothegm•4mo ago

This is the Y chromosome. On average men start families later than women do.

catlikesshrimp•4mo ago

Your comment made me realize something: Men do start families later than women do, and it is mostly sons in their families who are recognized. The sons they have before starting families can go unnoticed. Now the older age average makes more sense.

lif•4mo ago

tl;dr:

"15 direct male-line descendants related genealogically to both Leonardo's father and to his half-brother"

jojomodding•4mo ago

They haven't proven any genetic relationships between the currently alive and the ancient entombed bodies yet. So far they only confirmed that the currently alive people all share a straight-line male ancestor.

ttoinou•4mo ago

What would be missing to make the link between those two facts ? Im beginner in biology

kristianp•4mo ago

This seems bizarre to me. Why do people think they'll learn anything from what few fragments of dna they can recover? From a single unique individual? Seems like a big waste of money.

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Leonardo da Vinci’s Y chromosome shared by living family descendants

Comments

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