Wanderlust may be written in our DNA

From ancient nomads to modern job-hoppers, the urge to move may be written partly into our DNA.

People’s tendency to set down roots far from where they were born is partly inherited and grounded in early brain development, researchers report February 6 at bioRxiv.org. What’s more, the underlying genetic signatures appear both in modern populations and in ancient human genomes dating back thousands of years.

The findings, based on a large genetics study, suggest that long-distance migration is shaped not only by jobs, housing and politics but also by biological traits linked to cognition and risk-taking that have been favored by evolution for millennia.

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