Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says.

For anyone interested in the original paper (this journal is freely available to all): http://download.ajhg.org/AJHG/pdf/PIIS0002929708002553.pdf

Amazing how short the memory of science journalists can be. This is old news. As you'll find out if you do a quick google: http://www.google.com/search?q=humanity%20near%20extinction

A lot of the results are older than, well, last week.

I believe this idea was even mentioned in a National Geographic documentary. Humans are smart because they're the descendants of a small group (some say around 2000 - so much for inbreeding being bad for your offspring, I guess) that managed to survive some terrible event at some point. The dumber ones died off.

Along those lines, btw, I read somewhere that even after this near extinction it was still only a limited number of people that actually produced any offspring. The worst example of this is the Inca and the Dahomey empires where only the emperor / king and a few highly placed officials could actually have sex, but even in Medieval Europe most peasant males (that is to say, most of the population) did not have any children at all.

This is the most astounding news story I've read in a month. It is amazing that something like this could have happened as recently as 70,000 years ago. It does finally explain the African Eve, though.

Not sure if this is the same as the Mt Toba supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago in Sumatra that started a 1000 year long ice age and probably reduced the human population to 10'000 individuals: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/

same as http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=172767

Humans! Fascinating!

dont worry -- we'll step forward and pick up the slack where nature has failed