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Genetic studies of admixed populations are providing new insights into the genetic basis for the wide range of facial traits observed in humans.

Pennsylvania State University biological anthropologist Mark Shriver and his team are using genetic analyses and a variety of three-dimensional facial mapping techniques to understand how genes and genetic ancestry influence normal human facial traits. That, in turn, may provide information about human natural selection and sexual selection and provide new resources for forensic investigations.

"I think there's a valid and useful place for this type of science," Shriver told GenomeWeb Daily News.

While some research has been done to try to understand the genetics of cranio-facial anomalies, scientists still don't understand how genes and genetic ancestry influence the normal variation in human facial features.

In a review appearing in Forensic Science International: Genetics in early 2007, researchers from Spain's Institute for Legal Medicine and National Genotyping Centre noted that, at that time, "[a] search of the literature has not revealed any published work on normal variation of continuous features contributing to human facial morphology."

"The accepted and...