Science Saturday: Evolution of the Gracile Human

[bwn]

Originally Posted by Flaw

Questions if your able to answer:

How does living longer effect evolution?
-- Many have kids at a later age.
-- Do older people have more mutations which are passed to kid?

This is anecdotal, but relative to the US and Russia, in Spain you see far more twins and far more kids with Down's Syndrome. Both of those cases are made more common by parents having kids at a later age. I don't know that those would pass on any mutations permanently, though, to future generations. For obvious reasons Down's Syndrome patients rarely (ever?) reproduce, and as far as I know twins aren't any likelier to bear twins themselves.