Skeptic finds 4 year Bigfoot project "intriguing"

[Magical Realist]

Even other scientists who research bigfoot have claimed that other lab results that are independent should be trusted over her results. Her lab closed down in 2012 and disappeared and a mailing address was later created for it. She bought websites and created those journals - which never published anything else, just her study. One of which doesn't even have a website anymore. She also claims to have been where they live, named one of them, claims to have seen them up close, all without evidence except for a dodgy photo shop job. The woman is certifiable. And she is also involved in the latest study. Her cohorts and the people she has working for her make even more dubious claims that were laughed at by skeptics and bigfoot believer's alike.

The fact that she created websites and named them "Journals" and published them there, should tell you something. The people who found her paper hard to read are geneticists and biologists, actual and real experts, not to mention the fact that her paper was full of horrendous spelling and other errors.

The woman is absolutely fraudulent.

And yet the biochemist and geneticists confirmed the DNA samples WERE of an unknown species. Imagine that! Despite all her "devious" and low down publishings in her own journal and on her own website, her downright criminal changing of addresses, her murderous spelling errors, and her horrendous sightings of Bigfoot in the wild, she stands confirmed.

"A few days after, a statement appeared on the DeNovo website from David H. Swenson, a biochemist, who said he reviewed the manuscript and agrees with the conclusions....

The few experienced geneticists who viewed the paper reported a dismal opinion of it noting it made little sense.53 The DNA sequences did indeed contain matches to human chromosome 11, a lot of undetermined DNA, and some that, in part, matched to other animals. Thus, the whole sequences do not resemble any known animal and are contradictory with evolutionary biology."

 

[Daecon]

Or it's a mish-mash of several cross-contaminated samples.

Or are you trying to suggest that Bigfoot defies evolutionary biology?

 

[Bells]

And yet the biochemist and geneticists confirmed the DNA samples WERE of an unknown species. Imagine that! Despite all her "devious" and low down publishings in her own journal and on her own website, her downright criminal changing of addresses, her murderous spelling errors, and her horrendous sightings of Bigfoot in the wild, she stands confirmed.

"A few days after, a statement appeared on the DeNovo website from David H. Swenson, a biochemist, who said he reviewed the manuscript and agrees with the conclusions....

I love your selective editing.

Why didn't you post the paragraph in full - you know, for context?

As for the paper itself, it was incomprehensible to those without specialized training in genomics or forensics. It began with the premise that Sasquatch exists and this study helps to confirm that. Two days later, Ketchum announced through social media that (unnamed) “top level scientists” volunteered to assess her data. A few days after, a statement appeared on the DeNovo website from David H. Swenson, a biochemist, who said he reviewed the manuscript and agrees with the conclusions. This statement, as well as Ketchum’s own statements and those of her spokesperson were also riddled with grammatical and typographical errors.52​

So I went and hunted around for Swenson's statement and found it on a bigfoot site (not surprising):

David H. Swenson
Brien Foerster, Jeff Kart, and other interested parties. I went over the manuscript by Melba Ketchum on Bigfoot genomics. My desktop had difficulty with a blast analysis of the consensus sequences. It helped me understand more about the project. This collaborative venture has done a huge project that taxes me to fully grasp. I see interesting homology with a standard human sequence with 99% match for mitochondria. From my abbreviated study, the nuclear genome seems to have human and nonhuman sequences.

My opinion of the creature is that it is a hybrid of a human mother and an unknown hominid male, Just as reported. For all practical purposes, it should be treated as human and protected under law.

Brien, selection of Melba's lab for your studies is a very good call.

Sasquatch is real, as proven by genetic analysis.​

Swenson is apparently a biochemist who apparently had some difficulty with reading the information, if his statement is any indication. But hey, she managed to get someone with a degree to support her, even if he couldn't understand what he was reading:

Of course, you can’t read it for free — it’s $30.00 to get a copy. What you can read on-site is a statement from Dr. David H. Swenson, a biochemist from my own neck of the woods who currently heads a sustainable resources company in Saginaw, MI. I liked this touch. At least they got someone with a degree to sign off on their study … though his PhD is in oncology, not genetics, and he admits himself that “this collaborative venture has done a huge project that taxes me to fully grasp.” But hey, an endorsement’s an endorsement, right?​

You'll excuse me if I don't take Swenson's claims seriously.

Here is what an actual geneticist from Princeton had to say about her DNA evidence:

“To state the obvious, no data or analyses are presented that in any way support the claim that their samples come from a new primate or human-primate hybrid. Instead, analyses either come back as 100% human, or fail in ways that suggest technical artifacts. They make the bizarre claim that the failures might be caused by novel, nonstandard structure of the DNA (“Electron micrographs of the DNA revealed unusual double strand – single strand – double strand transitions which may have contributed to the failure to amplify during PCR.”) which would mean this DNA was different from DNA in all other known species. There’s also the strange statement they couldn’t deposit sequences in GenBank because it’s a new/unknown taxon — GenBank does that no problem.”

“The tree in Fig 16 is inconsistent with known primate phylogeny and generally makes no sense.”

Richard Gibbs, Human Genome Project and director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, advised that more was needed, because what she provided was not indicative of what she was claiming.

The few experienced geneticists who viewed the paper reported a dismal opinion of it noting it made little sense.53 The DNA sequences did indeed contain matches to human chromosome 11, a lot of undetermined DNA, and some that, in part, matched to other animals. Thus, the whole sequences do not resemble any known animal and are contradictory with evolutionary biology."

Yep. And a test done at a later date, by an independent lab, found the unknown variable in the DNA she made available was that of an opossum.

You are aware that her whole premise is that a giant ape had sex with a human female and she gave birth to bigfoot and thus a whole new species, right?

You are aware that is not possible, right?

And if any such 'mix' were to occur, if anything miraculously came from it, it would probably be infertile. You do know this, yes?

 

[Kittamaru]

Here is another problem:

http://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/diet-and-eating-habits/
A Gorilla will eat roughly 40 pounds of vegetation per day.

http://www.zutrition.com/gorilla-nutrition-guide/

Caloric needs of the gorilla can be estimated from the general energetic equation of Kleiber (1947), where basal metabolic rate (BMR) = 70 kcal X (body mass in kg) 0.75. Adult maintenance energy would then be estimated as 2 X BMR, and growing animals 3 X BMR. Thus for captive gorillas ranging from approximately 20 kg (juvenile) to 220 kg (adult male), energy needs would theoretically be met with 1990 to 8000 kcal/day. - See more at: http://www.zutrition.com/gorilla-nutrition-guide/#sthash.SbbjzGEx.dpuf

And the average adult gorilla, in captivity (which would have a LOWER caloric need than one in the wild) is roughly 8 thousand calories...

A cup of walnuts (just the meat, mind you, not including the shell etc) has roughly 500 calories, and weighs 4 ounces. Thus, we are assuming a gorilla would have to eat 16 4 ounce servings of walnuts, or four pounds of walnuts... and remember, that's JUST the meat inside, not the whole walnut. To get 4 pounds of walnut meat:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99

To get one ounce of walnut meat, you need to shell about 7 whole walnuts. So, to get four pounds of walnut meat, you would need 1oz * 16 oz to a pound * 4 pounds * 7 nuts = 1*16*4*7 = 448 walnuts... per day.

Now, recall - walnuts are an incredibly calorie-dense food. Also recall, we are talking the average caloric need of a gorilla in captivity... where they don't have to run around and forage for their own food. For the sake of argument, some zoos have found that INCREASING the overall caloric content of the diet (sometimes by as much as doubling it), yet spreading the meals throughout the day, Gorillas were healthier.

Also, Sasquatch appears to be much larger than a Gorilla. So... I think it's safe to assume a dietary need of at LEAST 12,000 calories.

How, in the name of all that is holy, do you suspect a Sasquatch can get that kind of dietary intake, especially in the middle of winter!?

 

[Bells]

This was something I had touched on earlier as well.

There is no evidence that they are hunting animals. And there seems to be this belief that they are gentle creatures that eat nuts, native fruits and roots.

For bigfoot to be able to survive, there would need to be many of them. I don't see how they can maintain a diet for their supposed size. No one has seen them going into people's backyards like bears do, scrounging around in bins, etc. So it doesn't make sense that they can somehow survive with a body mass that is big and strong enough to snap large trees in half on such little food.

Ketchum's research reeks of extensive contamination.

One of the best responses to Ketchum's so called study was actually posted on a bigfoot website, which posted a review of Ketchum's study and DNA samples by a scientist:

1) The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method for amplifying DNA. Ketchum and her team used it to obtain analyzable amounts of DNA from their samples. Since PCR amplifies DNA exponentially, any contaminating DNA can yield artifacts. This can reveal itself in products of unexpected size and sequence. The most likely interpretation of their observation of unusual products resulting from PCR of the samples is contamination. If one is not extremely careful with how one handles the source of the DNA samples, like hair, and the isolation of the DNA and all steps prior to PCR, then contamination is not just a possibility but a likelihood. Contaminating DNA can come merely from superficial contact, as it is on skin and hair. It could already be the sample (for instance, if the animal had killed and eaten another animal). It can originate from humans handling the samples or from any other organism whose DNA is present at any point, not only on site or during transport of the sample but also in any of the labs or facilities from any material that comes into contact with the sample (bench tops, improperly washed or autoclaved tubes or other lab implements, etc.) or even from bacteria on dust particles, which can be a problem if samples are exposed to the air for long. With regard to dust particles, much of the dust present in any normal setting under non-sterile conditions comes from human skin flakes (all people are constantly shedding very tiny flakes of skin, which contain not only human DNA but also microbes that feed on the skin). So there are myriad possible sources for contaminating DNA. One must be extremely careful to minimize such contamination in handling samples, especially for a very sensitive technique like PCR.

2) Other issues that can result in strange results are degraded DNA, as well as trivial but common things such as DNA polymerase enzyme that is no longer functional because of denaturation, forgetting to add a component of a reaction like the nucleoside triphosphate cocktail, not using the right buffer, etc. Experiments can fail and yield "false negatives" in addition to "false positives" or results that are "erroneous" in that they do not reflect what one thinks one is testing. This happens all the time. It is just the nature of experimentation, where there are many variables and many things that can go wrong, often without one ever knowing what went wrong. This is why it is so critical to be very careful with samples, perform the appropriate controls and repeat the experiments several times over (at least) to see if the results are repeatable.

3) Ketchum and co-workers found some European haplotypes from sequencing of their PCR products. They conclude, implausibly, that this is supported by the Solutrean hypothesis, an obscure idea that humans came over from Europe. The only basis for this hypothesis is that tools of the Solutrean culture, which existed in Europe between 17,000 and 20,000 years ago, seem to resemble tools from the Clovis culture, which developed in North America around 13,000 years ago. There are huge problems with this hypothesis - that Europeans came to North America around 13,000 years ago and spread tool-making to the mostly Asian-derived Native American population. Most archeaological and carbon-dating experiments emphatically do not support it. So why do Ketchum and co-workers jump to the most unlikely and assumption-laden conclusion to explain their data? Applying Occam's razor - that one should first go with and test the simplest of hypotheses when there are multiple explanations for something - would lead one to conclude that the sample was contaminated by one of the team members of European extraction.

4) In addition to the genotyping and sequence analysis, Ketchum and co-workers used electron microscopy to look at the DNA samples and found that some of the DNA would base pair with one complementary strand, but other parts would not base pair with anything at all and remain single stranded or base pair with another DNA molecule. Such DNA, if it originated from a single source, would be very strange. Even if they were, as they claim, looking at DNA from a hybrid of a female human and a non-human hominid male, the DNA would form double helical molecules. (A single or very small related source of maternal inheritance is concluded by Ketchum and her team since the mitochondrial DNA is human and seems to be from one source; mitochondrial DNA, unlike nuclear DNA, is inherited exclusively from the mother.) Ketchum and her team's assumption that their data support the notion of a single or very limited mating between a female human founder and a male non-human hominid is highly problematic, to say the least. First of all, the DNA would have undergone extensive DNA recombination since the time that the human and non-human hominid mated. Secondly, for successful mating to occur, the non-human hominid would have to be very closely related to humans. In that case, the DNA, even the non-coding regions, would be very similar and hybridization between the two would occur with nucleotide mismatches not going for long stretches of DNA for any given length of DNA; mismatching resulting in looped-out single strands would therefore not be observable by electron microscopy. Thirdly, even if the mating was between a human and a relatively distantly related non-human hominid (so that there was more extensive base mismatching) and was a relatively recent mating (so that much recombination would not have occurred yet), the two complementary strands of DNA from each chromosome from both the human and non-hominid ancestor would base pair with its own perfect complement rather than the other molecule (since that would be the most stable base-pairing pattern).

5) To reiterate and add to some points above related to the way their conclusions were an implausible stretch of the imagination, only relatively related species can mate and have fertile offspring. So the DNA should be very closely related one to the other. Even if they were more distantly related and bore fertile offspring, the sequences would be highly similar due to DNA recombination (and after 13,000 years or many hundreds of generations, there would be extensive recombination). Another weird assumption they make is that, while the hybridization resulted in fertile offspring, the offspring then did not mate with other pure humans or pure non-human hominid. Why did the hybridization occur only once or a limited number of times at the same period and place? Why was the hybridization confined to a human female and male non-human hominid? Why not a female non-human hominid and male human also (which is ruled out, even in their strange paradigm, by their not seeing non-human mitochondrial DNA)? How was an initial population big enough to support a breeding population generated? Obviously, there would have to have then been a lot of inbreeding, but how were enough even generated from a limited hybridization to lead to a non-out-breeding Sasquatch lineage from 13,000 years ago to the present? If the non-human hominid could breed with a human, why did it only breed with a supposed European-derived human in America 13,000 years ago and not also with Asian-derived humans, who obviously came over the ice bridge from Siberia to establish the Native American genome (by the way, there is no evidence of the presumed European ancestor in the Native American genome at all)? Also, why would all of the hybrids go off, live an isolated existence and not leave tangible evidence of this existence? What happened to the presumed non-human hominid that was the male founder of the Sasquatch lineage? It went extinct without leaving any archaeological or anthropological evidence of its existence? One could go on. It's all so very unlikely. It's a house of cards made of one flimsy card after another. It defies all evidence, any logic and is the product of pure faith.​

Perhaps Melba Ketchum watched too much King Kong as a child...

 

[Magical Realist]

"My opinion of the creature is that it is a hybrid of a human mother and an unknown hominid male, Just as reported. For all practical purposes, it should be treated as human and protected under law.

Brien, selection of Melba's lab for your studies is a very good call.

Sasquatch is real, as proven by genetic analysis."

Sounds like confirmation to me. Thanks for posting that.

Here's a number of independent confirmations of the Ketchum's DNA studies:

]http://www.sasquatchgenomeproject.org/sasquatch_genome_project_004.htm

As for your critique of the study by some anonymous scientist? Here's the response:

1. Please name this friend so we may examine his/her credentials.
2. These comments obvious originated from the first peer review done by the Journal Nature that were unethical leaked by one of the reviews.
3. The Novel North American Hominins, Next Generation Sequencing of Three Whole Genomes and Associated Studies was revised twice since this review.
4. All of his concerns were addressed ad nauseum in both the DNA Study and the peer reviews responses yet your "expert" predictably ignores them and the documentation.

Below is a paragraph from Dr. Ketchum's cover letter to the Journal Nature dated December 19th, 2012. It addresses most of the concerns of your unknown friend with a "Ph.D. from Harvard"

Reviewers accused our genomes of having contamination even though we went to great lengths to explain how the samples were extracted and screened to rule out contamination. To tell us, as scientists, especially those of us that are forensic scientists, that our samples are contaminated can be likened to accusing us of hoaxing a scientific study or perjuring ourselves in court. As forensic scientists that testify in court, this can be highly damaging and has caused all of the authors tremendous worry and concern. Since we were not given a chance to defend ourselves on the second peer review and our manuscript refused because of these
accusations (since all other revisions were verbiage and extremely minor), we contacted Illumina (manufacturers of the HiSeq 2000 next generation sequencing platform that we used to sequence the genomes) in an effort to prove, once and for all, that the three genomes were single source and not contaminated. We spoke with two supervisors specializing in technical support for next generation

DNA Diagnostics
P.O. Box 805
Garrison, Texas 75946
1-936-554-2116
http:www.dnadiagnostics.com

sequencing. We asked them if it was possible to prove if there was contamination in a genome or not. They immediately answered “yes”! They told us that the average Q30 score for a genome was 85, but if there was contamination, which would cause the divergent sequences to compete against one another, that a contaminated sample would have a Q30 score of only 40 to 50. A pure, single source sample would have a Q30 score of about 85. When we checked our Q30 scores for the first read, our three genomes had Q30 scores of 92, 88 and 89 respectively. The second read was a little lower 88, 84.25 and 83.66 but still very close to the average of 85. The Q30 is the percent of the reads that have the statistical probability greater than 1:1000 of being correctly sequenced.

Therefore, with the help of the scientists at Illumina, it was determined that not only were the sequences from a single source, but the quality of the sequences were far above the average genome sequenced using their platform. I can furnish contact information if you desire it. We attribute the high quality of the genomes to the stringent extraction procedures utilized whereby the DNA was repeatedly purified. This gave us greater than 30X coverage of the three genomes.

Furthermore, it supported our original findings of human mitochondrial DNA since the whole genomes yielded human mitochondrial DNA consistent with the original individual mtDNA genome sequencing. The nuDNA findings were also supported in that there was novel primate sequence in the nuDNA. So, the original submission was indeed supported by the next generation sequencing that we included in the revised submission. The three genomes aligned with one another also supporting that all three genomes came from the same species and they were NOT contaminated. Most importantly, the Q30 scores absolutely disproved the reviewers’ assumption that the whole genomes were a mixture of
human with animal DNA contaminants. The summary of the next generation
sequencing generated by the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencer is now furnished as Supplementary Data 7 to support this discussion that is now included in our manuscript, Lines 544-558.=====http://bigfootbooksblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/melba-is-toast-biochemist-with-phd-from.html

 

[Kittamaru]

Sounds to me like she's bitter that she got called out for her poor standards of reporting... heh, serves her right. If she can't tell the difference between opossum and primate DNA, well... perhaps she shouldn't be a "forensic analyst"... I certainly hope her evidence or analysis was never used to issue the Death Penalty to someone...

 

[Magical Realist]

Or it's a mish-mash of several cross-contaminated samples.

Or are you trying to suggest that Bigfoot defies evolutionary biology?

I don't think contamination would yield an unknown species in the same strand of DNA. Maybe a known one, but that is not what was found.

 

[Kittamaru]

I don't think contamination would yield an unknown species in the same strand of DNA. Maybe a known one, but that is not what was found.

Why would contamination yield a known species... you're taking two or more genetically incompatible species and analyzing their DNA together...

 

[Magical Realist]

Here is another problem:

http://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/diet-and-eating-habits/
A Gorilla will eat roughly 40 pounds of vegetation per day.

http://www.zutrition.com/gorilla-nutrition-guide/


And the average adult gorilla, in captivity (which would have a LOWER caloric need than one in the wild) is roughly 8 thousand calories...

A cup of walnuts (just the meat, mind you, not including the shell etc) has roughly 500 calories, and weighs 4 ounces. Thus, we are assuming a gorilla would have to eat 16 4 ounce servings of walnuts, or four pounds of walnuts... and remember, that's JUST the meat inside, not the whole walnut. To get 4 pounds of walnut meat:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99

To get one ounce of walnut meat, you need to shell about 7 whole walnuts. So, to get four pounds of walnut meat, you would need 1oz * 16 oz to a pound * 4 pounds * 7 nuts = 1*16*4*7 = 448 walnuts... per day.

Now, recall - walnuts are an incredibly calorie-dense food. Also recall, we are talking the average caloric need of a gorilla in captivity... where they don't have to run around and forage for their own food. For the sake of argument, some zoos have found that INCREASING the overall caloric content of the diet (sometimes by as much as doubling it), yet spreading the meals throughout the day, Gorillas were healthier.

Also, Sasquatch appears to be much larger than a Gorilla. So... I think it's safe to assume a dietary need of at LEAST 12,000 calories.

How, in the name of all that is holy, do you suspect a Sasquatch can get that kind of dietary intake, especially in the middle of winter!?

"The sasquatch is an omnivore with a substantial carnivorous component to its diet. They have been observed directly to eat leaves, berries, fruits, roots, aquatic plants and other vegetable matter, catch fish, dig up clams or ground squirrels, and prey on poultry, deer, elk and bear. In addition, they eat other odd items, such as young evergreen shoots, crayfish, road kill, meat or fish from human storage sites, hunter-killed game animals (these sometimes snatched in front of the hunter), and occasional garbage. They take an occasional livestock animal, but not with sufficient frequency as to produce organized persecution.

They appear to kill large prey animals by a blow with the fist, rock or stick or by twisting their necks, sometimes to the point of decapitation. Liver and other internal organs are their first targets. The remaining meat is sometimes stored on the ground under a haphazard shelter of sticks or lifted into tree forks above ground. No compelling evidence exists that they store food in any substantial way beyond this; only rarely has a sasquatch been observed carrying a fish some distance from its origin, or a deer, presumably into hiding.

Caloric requirements per gram of living matter decrease as a function of total mass of the animal. Nonetheless, the nutritional needs of an average sasquatch can be calculated to amount to about 5,000 calories per day. This amount can only be fulfilled by rather constant searching for food and especially by intermittent predation. Sasquatches have been seen both with substantial girth as well as looking decidedly skinny."====http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_FAQ.asp?id=586

 

[spidergoat]

"The sasquatch is an omnivore with a substantial carnivorous component to its diet. They have been observed directly to eat leaves, berries, fruits, roots, aquatic plants and other vegetable matter, catch fish, dig up clams or ground squirrels, and prey on poultry, deer, elk and bear. In addition, they eat other odd items, such as young evergreen shoots, crayfish, road kill, meat or fish from human storage sites, hunter-killed game animals (these sometimes snatched in front of the hunter), and occasional garbage. They take an occasional livestock animal, but not with sufficient frequency as to produce organized persecution.

They appear to kill large prey animals by a blow with the fist, rock or stick or by twisting their necks, sometimes to the point of decapitation. Liver and other internal organs are their first targets. The remaining meat is sometimes stored on the ground under a haphazard shelter of sticks or lifted into tree forks above ground. No compelling evidence exists that they store food in any substantial way beyond this; only rarely has a sasquatch been observed carrying a fish some distance from its origin, or a deer, presumably into hiding.

Caloric requirements per gram of living matter decrease as a function of total mass of the animal. Nonetheless, the nutritional needs of an average sasquatch can be calculated to amount to about 5,000 calories per day. This amount can only be fulfilled by rather constant searching for food and especially by intermittent predation. Sasquatches have been seen both with substantial girth as well as looking decidedly skinny."====

Tell me another story, grandfather. I enjoyed that.

 

[Magical Realist]

Why would contamination yield a known species... you're taking two or more genetically incompatible species and analyzing their DNA together...

Contamination means you have simply gotten some other species' DNA mixed in with your sample. It doesn't effect the original DNA at the sequence level. It's not going to indicate an unknown species.

 

[Kittamaru]

"The sasquatch is an omnivore with a substantial carnivorous component to its diet. They have been observed directly to eat leaves, berries, fruits, roots, aquatic plants and other vegetable matter, catch fish, dig up clams or ground squirrels, and prey on poultry, deer, elk and bear. In addition, they eat other odd items, such as young evergreen shoots, crayfish, road kill, meat or fish from human storage sites, hunter-killed game animals (these sometimes snatched in front of the hunter), and occasional garbage. They take an occasional livestock animal, but not with sufficient frequency as to produce organized persecution.

So they are supposedly intelligent enough to hunt/fish/graze WITHOUT overburdening the local supply (and thus depleting it) as well as to steal WITHOUT causing retribution... yet they do not have their own dwellings/domiciles? How the hell does that work? And they don't farm their own food?

Show me ANY other animal capable of such an action that doesn't have dedicated, and quite obvious, nesting areas.

They appear to kill large prey animals by a blow with the fist, rock or stick or by twisting their necks, sometimes to the point of decapitation. Liver and other internal organs are their first targets. The remaining meat is sometimes stored on the ground under a haphazard shelter of sticks or lifted into tree forks above ground. No compelling evidence exists that they store food in any substantial way beyond this; only rarely has a sasquatch been observed carrying a fish some distance from its origin, or a deer, presumably into hiding.

So what do they do during the winter, when grazing sources are depleted (unless they can eat wood), bodies of water are frozen, and most game has disappeared or gone into hibernation?

Caloric requirements per gram of living matter decrease as a function of total mass of the animal. Nonetheless, the nutritional needs of an average sasquatch can be calculated to amount to about 5,000 calories per day. This amount can only be fulfilled by rather constant searching for food and especially by intermittent predation. Sasquatches have been seen both with substantial girth as well as looking decidedly skinny."====http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_FAQ.asp?id=586

So somehow these creatures, which are more active, more intelligent (thus necessitating a higher caloric intake), and larger than a gorilla... somehow needs fewer calories than a gorilla kept in captivity?

Please, do explain to me HOW that works...

Contamination means you have simply gotten some other species' DNA mixed in with your sample. It doesn't effect the original DNA at the sequence level. It's not going to indicate an unknown species.

This is true if, and only if, the sequencing is done correctly. Given the results, I think it's quite evident that it was NOT done correctly in this case... or is there some other reason you can think why she couldn't identify the Opossum DNA?

 

[billvon]

Interesting (and somewhat sad) study:
================
Study: Americans are as likely to believe in Bigfoot as in the big bang theory
By Christopher Ingraham October 24, 2014

Joedy Cook, director of the Ohio Center for Bigfoot Studies, talks to a visitor to his booth Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005, at the Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, Texas. (AP Photo/D.J. Peters)
Human beings are, in general, a superstitious lot. Our tendency to see patterns where they don't exist, and to falsely apply cause to effect, may have helped keep us alive back when we were little more than a band of frightened critters scurrying about the savanna. Those tendencies linger to the present day, reflected in our stubborn belief in completely irrational things: Rabbit's feet. Horoscopes. A return to the gold standard.

The Chapman University Survey on American Fears, a comprehensive study of the fears, phobias and irrational beliefs of the American people, was just released this week and contains an interesting section on belief in the paranormal. The results are drawn from a nationally-representative sample of 2,500 American adults.

It finds that belief in certain paranormal phenomenon - like influencing the world with physical thought, and foretelling the future with dreams - are fairly widespread. On the other hand, few Americans actually believe in astrology.

a 2014 AP poll found that 51 percent of Americans said they were confident that childhood vaccines are safe and effective. This is roughly the same proportion of Americans who believe houses or rooms can be haunted by spirits.

Slightly over 40 percent of Americans believe in UFOs. This is considerably higher than the share of Americans who are confident that global warming is real, that life evolved through natural selection, or that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.

About as many Americans say they believe in Bigfoot as say they're confident that the universe began with a big bang.

 

[Kittamaru]

That is a sad graph... in fact, with people being that dumb/gullible and having such a lack of understanding in science...

 

[Kristoffer]

Does the US school system even attempt to teach your kids critical thinking? That graph is scary as fuck.

 

[Kittamaru]

Does the US school system even attempt to teach your kids critical thinking? That graph is scary as fuck.

Honestly? No, no it doesn't.

In general, we are taught facts and figures, what to remember, and how to take tests... we aren't taught how to approach an unknown situation, nor are we taught practical things, like how to balance a budget, keep a ledger in a checkbook, or critically and logically analyze a problem... in pat because we are so obsessed with our damn standardized tests that, really, teachers don't have time to teach kids how to learn and think for themselves, but rather have to cram their heads full of random shit so they can regurgitate it up all over a test, forget it, and start the cycle again with the next tests material.

And we wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us...

 

[Magical Realist]

So they are supposedly intelligent enough to hunt/fish/graze WITHOUT overburdening the local supply (and thus depleting it) as well as to steal WITHOUT causing retribution... yet they do not have their own dwellings/domiciles? How the hell does that work? And they don't farm their own food?

Show me ANY other animal capable of such an action that doesn't have dedicated, and quite obvious, nesting areas.



So what do they do during the winter, when grazing sources are depleted (unless they can eat wood), bodies of water are frozen, and most game has disappeared or gone into hibernation?



So somehow these creatures, which are more active, more intelligent (thus necessitating a higher caloric intake), and larger than a gorilla... somehow needs fewer calories than a gorilla kept in captivity?

Please, do explain to me HOW that works...



This is true if, and only if, the sequencing is done correctly. Given the results, I think it's quite evident that it was NOT done correctly in this case... or is there some other reason you can think why she couldn't identify the Opossum DNA?

"Now, how does the success of a bear correlate with the possibility of a Bigfoot surviving in the wild? It all comes down to calories. Opportunistic feeders such as bears and humans can find enough calories to keep bodily functions going relatively easily. There are berries, plant roots, other animals, and if all else fails there is plenty of insects to eat in the woods. A great example of this is the grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park that have been observed eating an estimated 20,000 calories each worth of moths per day in the summertime. The caloric equivalent at Carl’s Jr would be eating 9 Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger meals with large fries and Oreo cookie shakes. I’ll take Carl’s Jr over moths any day, but if I was trying to survive in the woods for any length of time, grubs would become my new cream puffs.

Now, I don’t claim to be a nutrition expert but I think it is safe to assume that if Bigfoot does exist, its caloric needs would fall somewhere between the average man (2,000 calories) and a bear (20,000 calories). Put that together with the information that California alone has habitat capable of supporting an estimated population of around 30,000 black bears and it becomes easy to conclude that the same habitat could potentially support a Bigfoot population as well. If a bear can do it, why can’t Bigfoot?"====http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2012/02/if-bear-can-do-it-why-cant-bigfoot.html

 

[Kittamaru]

"Now, how does the success of a bear correlate with the possibility of a Bigfoot surviving in the wild? It all comes down to calories. Opportunistic feeders such as bears and humans can find enough calories to keep bodily functions going relatively easily. There are berries, plant roots, other animals, and if all else fails there is plenty of insects to eat in the woods. A great example of this is the grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park that have been observed eating an estimated 20,000 calories each worth of moths per day in the summertime. The caloric equivalent at Carl’s Jr would be eating 9 Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger meals with large fries and Oreo cookie shakes. I’ll take Carl’s Jr over moths any day, but if I was trying to survive in the woods for any length of time, grubs would become my new cream puffs.

Again, where are you going to get berries, insects, and other animals during the harsh winter months? How are you going to get at the plant roots when the ground is frozen solid?

Now, I don’t claim to be a nutrition expert but I think it is safe to assume that if Bigfoot does exist, its caloric needs would fall somewhere between the average man (2,000 calories) and a bear (20,000 calories). Put that together with the information that California alone has habitat capable of supporting an estimated population of around 30,000 black bears and it becomes easy to conclude that the same habitat could potentially support a Bigfoot population as well. If a bear can do it, why can’t Bigfoot?"====http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2012/02/if-bear-can-do-it-why-cant-bigfoot.html

First off, we are talking a creature far more muscular than a man... hence why I used a Gorilla as a baseline. Secondly, those black bears tend to do this thing called hibernation during the winter... primarily because food is scarce during that time. Unless you are suggesting Bigfoot hibernates during the winter...

And you still haven't explained how a creature can have higher-level intelligence for art and tools, and yet not utilize even basic farming techniques.

 

[Magical Realist]

Again, where are you going to get berries, insects, and other animals during the harsh winter months? How are you going to get at the plant roots when the ground is frozen solid?

"They have been observed directly to eat leaves, berries, fruits, roots, aquatic plants and other vegetable matter, catch fish, dig up clams or ground squirrels, and prey on poultry, deer, elk and bear. In addition, they eat other odd items, such as young evergreen shoots, crayfish, road kill, meat or fish from human storage sites, hunter-killed game animals (these sometimes snatched in front of the hunter), and occasional garbage. They take an occasional livestock animal, but not with sufficient frequency as to produce organized persecution."

First off, we are talking a creature far more muscular than a man... hence why I used a Gorilla as a baseline.

That's why they eat deer, elk, wild hogs, squirrels, fish, and clams. Plenty of protein...

Secondly, those black bears tend to do this thing called hibernation during the winter... primarily because food is scarce during that time. Unless you are suggesting Bigfoot hibernates during the winter...

Could be. Who knows?

And you still haven't explained how a creature can have higher-level intelligence for art and tools, and yet not utilize even basic farming techniques.

LOL! It's kind of hard to farm when you're a hunter living in the forests and used to living off the abundant food resources provided there. Why would they need to resort to it?