Note that the article never specifically talks about propagating genes, just abo... | Hacker News

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brlewis on Aug 22, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: Family trees: Tracing the world's ancestor

Note that the article never specifically talks about propagating genes, just about being an ancestor. No matter how many generations you go back, there will be at most 46 ancestors in that generation whose genes a descendant has, and only one ancestor's mitochondrial DNA.

d2vid on Aug 22, 2012 [–]

Not true regarding 46 ancestors - chromosomal DNA is swapped between the homologous chromosomes during meiosis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis#Prophase_I

You are correct about mitochondrial DNA.

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