What's up with all the recent sasquatch and yeti DNA "studies"?

DNA to shed light on yeti claims
22 May 2012 Last updated at 11:57 ET

A UK-Swiss team will use DNA testing to investigate the origins of remains claimed to be from yeti and bigfoot. The project will examine hair, bone and other material from a collection amassed by a Swiss biologist - and will invite submissions from elsewhere. Many cultures relate legends of hairy, humanoid creatures that lurk in the wilds, rarely seen ... "It's an area that any serious academic ventures into with a deal of trepidation... It's full of eccentric and downright misleading reports," said Prof Bryan Sykes, from Oxford University ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18160673


Sasquatch in Siberia? Hair found in Russian cave 'belonged to unknown mammal closely related to man'
Hair did not belong to any known animal from the region such as a bear, wolf, or goat
Mysterious mammal more closely related to man than to monkeys
By Will Stewart In Moscow
PUBLISHED: 10:21 EST, 30 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:24 EST, 30 October 2012

Astonishing claims were made in Russia today that DNA tests on suspected 'Yeti hair' reveals the existence of 'an unknown mammal closely related to man' ... 'We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human,' said Professor Valentin Sapunov, of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute ... Analysis was conducted in the Russia and US and 'agreed the hair came from a human-like creature which is not a Homo sapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey', said the Siberian Times, citing claims made on a regional government website in Russia in the area where the hair samples were allegedly found ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225276/Yeti-latest-Russian-scientists-say-DNA-tests-hair-samples-existence-man-like-mammal.html


Sasquatch: Does DNA say it’s human?
Posted on November 28, 2012

... The research was done by a team led by Melba Ketchum, a former veterinarian who moved into genetic research 27 years ago and runs DNA Diagnostics, Inc., based in Texas. Ketchum had hoped to see the results announced in a peer-reviewed scientific journal but they were “outed” last Friday by a note on the website of the Russia-based International Center of Hominology.

The center’s director, listed on the site as Dr. Igor Burtsev, wrote that Ketchum’s findings prove Sasquatch or Bigfoot “is human like us only different, a hybrid of a human with unknown species.”

Reached on telephone Monday, Ketchum said the 50-page manuscript containing the research and DNA findings is still in peer review at a scientific journal. As for whether the premature announcement would impact that, she said, “I hope not. So far we haven’t heard anything that says it’s going to stop it.” As for when the study might become public, she said, “in weeks instead of many months, that’s for sure.”

Ketchum said the study had sequenced “three complete Sasquatch nuclear genomes” and determined the species is a human hybrid — “the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens” ...

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/yhr/tuesday/557851-8/sasquatch-does-dna-say-its-human


Bigfoot DNA? Not so fast, many say

... This is Bigfoot we’re talking about, a creature that has never definitively been observed ... Ketchum’s statement did not describe where she got her DNA samples ... “Human DNA plus some anomalies or unknowns does not equal an impossible human-ape hybrid. It equals human DNA plus some anomalies” .... results should emerge from the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid project, led by University of Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes, which will conduct tests on hair samples supplied by the public and said to come from Yetis, Bigfoots and the like. Those results should appear in a peer-reviewed journal, the Associated Press reported earlier this year ... Ketchum may be planning to film a documentary and write a book about her work ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-sasquatch-dna-20121127,0,1180891.story