Ancestral Climates May Have Shaped Your Nose

An interesting study has been done recently about how our nose shape could be mostly influenced by the climates where our ancestors lived. Our noses not only serve their obvious purposes for smell but in fact also work to warm and humidify the air we breathe in order to prevent damage to our lungs and limit illnesses. Dr. Arslan Zaidi from Penn State, along with several other of his colleagues looked at different traits beginning with  nose height, protrusions, and nostril width. They also looked at skin pigmentation and the height of men and women from the four different regions around the world where they were gathering participants from. The regions included West Africa, East Asia, Northern Europe and South Asia, each group had around 40 participants. It was found that people who's ancestors and parents came from warm or hotter climates tended to have wider nostrils, in comparison to those from cold, dryer climates tend to have narrow ones. They also found that in Northern Europeans this was extremely true and the particularly dry climates may have favored individuals with narrower nostrils. 

It was also demonstrated that nose shape is a heritable trait. Dr. Zaidi and his colleagues demonstrated this by showing an association between shared genes and similarities in nose shape in large groups of individuals who were not related. In another article by The Guardian, nose shape is thought be influenced by GLI3, PAX, RUNX2, and DCHS2 genes. It is always interesting to learn about traits that are greatly influenced by the environment versus just your genes because it can often times be underestimated how big of a role environment places on human appearance compared to that of other animals. It is of course also always important to understand more about our general  anatomy and physiology. 
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/19/scientists-sniff-out-genes-controlling-human-nose-shapes
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/science/ancestral-climates-may-have-shaped-your-nose.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ftrilobites&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
             

Asparagus!

Over the years, more and more research has been done to investigate why some people can smell the odor that asparagus gives their urine and others cannot. A new study found over 800 new reasons as to why this happens. Researchers studied the genes of roughly 7,000 people and found that there are ~870 genetic variants that are linked to the inability to smell the odor. When a group of random people were asked if they could smell the odor, 40% said yes, they could. Strange enough, more women than men said they could not smell the odor. Since the genes affecting this were already identified, they were able to tell which ones made it "possible" to smell the odor and which ones made it "not possible".

The study certainly has its limitations on how accurate it really is because you are asking a person (self-reported) if they can smell the odor. Once researchers find a new way to test this, other than by the person's self-reported answer, then it will be more accurate. However, I hope there is not much time spent on something like this considering all that can be discovered pertaining to genetics other than the genes that pertain to smelling the odor of asparagus of your urine. But maybe, something could come out of a it and it could lead to more discoveries.




Source: (other source is in text)
http://www.livescience.com/57199-why-some-people-cant-smell-asparagus-pee.html