
Yeast Probably Originated in China - kercker
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/yeast-sequencing-china/557930/?single_page=true
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GW150914
This is referring to one species of yeast, whereas yeast in general is many
millions of years old. This only applies to what is called the Brewer’s Yeast.
Yeast as a kind of organism is at least hundreds of millions of years old. As
such the title should include the species name, or common name to make clear
the truth of this, and prevent confusion.

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blahedo
This is very explicitly contradicted in the article, so your claim is not
simply about the inaccuracy of the title. Do you have a cite for your claim?

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GW150914
_The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and 1,500
species are currently identified.[1][2][3]_

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast)

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drb311
Yes it originated hundreds of millions of years ago. And this new research
indicates it was probably in China. (The land not the civilisation.)

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icegreentea2
No, the research says that Saccharomyces cerevisiae probably emerged in China,
not all yeast.

I think the point is that the article hopelessly uses the term 'yeast'.

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fungusAmongUs
Single celled fungi are likely to be older than our current continental
arrangement, the title could clarify that yeast had most likely become
domesticated in China, maybe around 4,000 ago, from which all modern
domesticated yeast may have descended.

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hk__2
> the title could clarify that yeast had most likely become domesticated in
> China, maybe around 4,000 ago, from which all modern domesticated yeast may
> have descended

That’s not what the paper says. The out-of-China event is estimated to be
~15,000 years ago while the various domestication events were only 4,000 years
ago. [1]

[1]: [https://static-
content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...](https://static-
content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-018-0030-5/MediaObjects/41586_2018_30_MOESM1_ESM.pdf)
see note 4.

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ginko
This is the most surprising take-away from this article and paper for me. I
would have thought a simple pervasive organism like yeast would be millions of
years old. But then again I guess there's just as brutal a competition between
single celled organisms as it is for complex ones.

edit: As a homebrewer this would also mean that the best place to look for
interesting wild strains of yeast for brewing might be in China.

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derefr
Yeast probably _is_ millions of years old; but a species being millions of
years old doesn't naturally cause it to spread across the face of the Earth.
Sometimes a thing evolves in a niche and can't get out of that niche (despite
there being other places it could thrive) because it's surrounded on all sides
by inhospitable local habitats.

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timmytim
It's hard to separate what actually came from China, and what didn't come from
China. Not that it isn't obvious (I mean really, you invented the spoon --
also claimed by Korea but whatever -- information overload so they have done
themselves a disservice.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
We'll this is prior to the existence of China, they mean the area now known as
China.

Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?

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contingencies
_Not sure what was going on there 4k-15k years ago?_

Scholarship in ancient Chinese history here. While 'China' as a concept didn't
exist, certain forerunners to key cultural traits defining Chinese
civilization were in place by 3000BC. This includes agriculture with pigs,
chickens and common intensive staple crops, village structures, pottery,
warmaking, Sino-Tibetan language,[0] and critically the indisputable
development of written Chinese characters.

However, in addition to these there were also distinct, large, parallel,
significant cultures with impressive technical achievements, those such as the
Shu[1] Kingdom (finally invaded and destroyed by the Qin in 316BC, and only
rediscovered in the 1980s) which was known for its masterful large-scale
bronze casting, said to be unequaled in human history.

Prior to 2k years ago, it gets messy fast, and notions of "China" are vague,
relative and almost untenable. Chiefly because, lacking any large unifying
kingdom to provide political, economic, military and cultural unity, it's very
difficult to make blanket statements about an area the size of the modern
region of China. There were certainly separate cultural spheres from the
northeast (circa Korea), the north, the northwest (Xinjiang), Tibet[2],
Sichuan, Yunnan/Guizhou/Guangxi, Hainan, the southeast and Taiwan, from which
humans launched themselves in to the Pacific to conquer the final part of the
planet.[3] We can make sparse suggestions based on suppositions about overall
migrations of people and technology, but not much more.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshao_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshao_culture)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_(state)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_\(state\))

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Tibet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Tibet)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples#Prehistor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples#Prehistory_and_history)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
2 questions:

When the dominant state broke down and new states emerged - as in 3 kingdoms,
or 16 kingdoms periods - would you always consider a later state to be a
successor in title of the state that existed prior to the break up? Is it the
language?

>"critically the indisputable development of written Chinese characters." //

What makes the characters Chinese. Italian, for example, uses the Latin
character set (though that comes from Greek, which comes from, ...; which may
make it a poor analogue). Why aren't they Qin, or Han, or whatever? Is it just
imprecise naming.

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contingencies
Agreed. Succession is relative and a grey area, and nomenclature is arbitrary.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I was hoping for inciteful answers .. but accord will do ;o)

Funnily enough [https://qz.com/522079/the-long-incredibly-tortuous-and-
fasci...](https://qz.com/522079/the-long-incredibly-tortuous-and-fascinating-
process-of-creating-a-chinese-font/) popped up in my reading today and
dovetailed serendipitously with this discussion, the images of symbol
development were particularly interesting to me.

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grzm
Actual title: "All of the World's Yeast Probably Originated in China"

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dang
"Yeast came from China" is the HTML doc title. That's also a legit choice.

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grzm
I should have noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out. I do think the title
on the page is a bit more nuanced.

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dang
Ok, we'll use that then. Thanks!

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dbasedweeb
Except the title is absurd, because “all yeast” predates any conceivable
ability to trace its precise origin, and has existed at _least_ as long ago as
a time when Asia the continent didn’t exist, but was part of Pangaea. Either
it’s talking about Saccharomyces cerevisiae or it’s a joke.

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dang
If you or anyone can suggest an accurate, neutral title that is 80 chars or
less and preferably uses representative language from the article, we'll
happily change it again.

~~~
dbasedweeb
“Saccharomyces cerevisiae originated in China circa 12,000BCE”

