Professor Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland was a long way from
her laboratory in College Park, Maryland on her current research project.
She was in East Africa for three months, driving her Range Rover into remote
areas to gather information about how modern humans got started.
Dr. Tishkoff did most of her research in five countries -- Tanzania, Kenya,
Cameroon, Nigeria and Gambia. Scientists believe that modern humans
originated in Africa and migrated within the past 100,000 years to other
regions of the world. "I'm hoping to learn more about that migration
event out of Africa," says Dr. Tishkoff. "I want to know when and where modern humans evolved in Africa, when the migration event out of Africa occurred and how big the population was that left Africa."
