This is a concept piece for a series of posters.

Each poster shows an image based on a peer reviewed paper with text that explains the science, the art, and the link to the custom web site, "One Cool Molecule.com".

Deciphering the molecular clock in mitochondrial DNA opened the door to understanding our prehistoric lineages. “Power of the Double X” is about the ancient female line — just one of many fascinating stories from the field of paleogenomics. This is the text on the poster:

The story: From comparison of mitochondrial DNA sequences, geneticists revealed that all humans on earth today were descended from a single female who lived in Africa about 80,000 years ago. She wasn’t the only woman at the time but her genetic information has been passed from mother to daughter for thousands of generations. Now there’s a powerful female success story.

The art: “Mitochondrial Eve” by Lynn Fellman is shown in a garden nurturing a helix. To imagine what our original female ancestor may have looked like, the artist researched people living in Africa today. A group called “The San” have the most complex DNA (deepest ancestry) and have Asian and African features. So “Eve” is a stylized interpretation of the original Double X.

The science: The original paper “Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution” was written by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan C. Wilson. It was published in “Nature”, 325, in 1987.

Curious? To read more about “Mitochondrial Eve” and how anthropologists and geneticists are collaborating to decipher our past visit the web site. You’ll see how science and art come together illuminate the human story of One Cool Molecule.