"Inbreeding inevitably results in nasty genetic mutations," Serpell told me.
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Age, inbreeding, environment or diet might explain their new look.
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For the record, inbreeding biologically or economically is never good.
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Inbreeding could cause all kinds of genetic and morphological problems.
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The walls fragment their populations and increase the risks of inbreeding.
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But because records were kept fastidiously, researchers could rule out inbreeding.
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They discovered that Kenny suffered from facial deformities because of inbreeding.
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"They did not die because of inbreeding," Athithat Srimanee told Reuters.
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Many purebred dogs suffer from hip dysplasia and other symptoms of inbreeding.
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His insanity was ultimately attributed to the inbreeding in the Targaryen family.
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Inbreeding decreases genetic diversity, which means that deleterious mutations can pile up.
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Unlike modern horses, the Scythian horses' DNA showed no signs of inbreeding.
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Even in the last few generations before extinction, there was little inbreeding.
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Reproducing this way would be, in effect, the closest sort of inbreeding imaginable.
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But one issue is that these diploid potatoes would expose generations of inbreeding.
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Also, inbreeding is bad and can lead to depression, if you're a potato.
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Inbreeding, of course, is responsible for new health challenges in the siloed populations.
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Although inbreeding can create genetic mutations, few species can actually develop Down syndrome.
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For one thing, the marriages between relatives could reveal the effects of inbreeding.
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And the inbreeding that can occur while raising massive populations also takes a toll.
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This means animals are often cut off from unrelated animals — and results in inbreeding.
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Later on Victorians produced many breeds that have even narrower bottlenecks, with much inbreeding.
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When set free, the young felines are spread across different areas, to avoid inbreeding.
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The koala population has already been threatened by widespread habitat destruction, chlamydia, and inbreeding.
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Inbreeding was a staple of comedic (and horrific) stereotypes of Appalachia for years before Deliverance.
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For example, to maintain genetic diversity, no line or inbreeding within three generations is permitted.
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That inbreeding has resulted in a species less able to adapt to the changing conditions.
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This prevents too much geographical isolation, which can result in inbreeding and ultimately local extinction.
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The actual effects of inbreeding in human populations — let alone individuals — is not easily quantified.
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Purebred dogs have genetic predispositions to health problems, which can be exacerbated by intentional inbreeding.
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For this penguin dating service to work, documenting familial lineages is critical to avoiding inbreeding.
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Inbreeding, a practice of mating between relatives, was common among Neanderthals according to previous research.
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The great scientist's experiments on plants later convinced him of the "evil effects" of persistent inbreeding.
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Once the male giraffe has matured, he will be moved to another zoo to prevent inbreeding.
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A genetic analysis reveals that these mammoths, on their isolated island, likely fell victim to inbreeding.
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Numbers of the animals dropped so low that they were forced to practice inbreeding to survive.
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The program began with an estimated 175 founding tortoises, a large enough population to avoid inbreeding.
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This was observed in crows, where inbreeding was associated with lower survival and weaker immune function.
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The small population would have led to inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity, according to the study.
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"I wanted to find out whether MHC is important when it comes to avoiding inbreeding," he explains.
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Inbreeding dramatically increases offspring's chance of contracting a range of genetic diseases, as well as dying early.
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Over the same period, inbreeding also decreased by 43 percent, which is "really rapid," Ms. Hasselgren said.
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The clubs have been criticized by some for promoting inbreeding that destroys genetic diversity, among other complaints.
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It's well-known that inbreeding is problematic, but scientists say that excessive "outbreeding" also has genetic consequences.
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This process causes "extreme inbreeding," she said, and is not conducive to adaptability, or generational longevity and diversity.
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Historically, European royalty have been known — and since ridiculed — for inbreeding to preserve the purity of their bloodlines.
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Over time, inbreeding magnifies specific traits within a lineage, causing for wide physical and behavioral differences between breeds.
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With a population of just a few hundred, generations of mating between related individuals - inbreeding - triggered harmful mutations.
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Sure, Smith and her colleagues could look for known symptoms of inbreeding in mountain lions, like kinked tails.
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Purebred English bulldogs will never be healthy, thanks to generations of calculated inbreeding in pursuit of "ideal" characteristics.
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"Keep close relations?" could mean to stay close to someone, or it could be a pun on INBREEDing.
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But another threat to the kakapo is a lack of genetic diversity, because of low numbers and inbreeding.
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Lithuanian talk radio has also mocked the Barnevernet, saying officials seize foreign children to reduce inbreeding in Norway.
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Alfredo del Mazo Maza, the PRI's candidate to succeed Mr Ávila, is an even better example of political inbreeding.
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Chen's team thinks this might be an adaptation to prevent inbreeding between mothers and sons and brothers and sisters.
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A 2015 survey conducted by The Kennel Club discovered inbreeding among pedigree bulldogs skyrocketed during the 1980s and 1990s.
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Initially this is caused by lack of numbers, but then it is exacerbated by the inbreeding which inevitably results.
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Mr. Supitpong said that through meditation, monks had come up with dietary solutions to repair genetic defects from inbreeding.
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Lynx numbers, which are notoriously small, are especially vulnerable to inbreeding if individuals aren't able to move between subpopulations.
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Not only are there fewer calves in recent years, but signs of inbreeding also point to a weakening population.
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The moves help the DOD get away from "the more or less inbreeding culture of the past," he added.
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In this scene, a white rhino had to be relocated from a small reserve in KwaZulu-Natal to prevent inbreeding.
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As a result, mainland wolves aren't mixing with the Isle Royale population as much, resulting in population loss and inbreeding.
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"Too much similarity would cause inbreeding," Little says, "so there may be a limit to how similar partners should be."
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His family celebrates inbreeding the way the Hapsburg monarchs did, so he's probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
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"We have a portrait that shows how god-awful ugly Charles was—the result of massive Habsburg inbreeding," Lenaghan said.
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But then again, self-fertilization, the epitome of inbreeding, could leave her offspring more vulnerable to disease and other threats.
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Those snakes were on the far northern edge of their species' habitat, and showed signs they had suffered from inbreeding.
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Other research suggests the rate of inbreeding for bulldogs is declining, according to the U.K. Kennel Club, which registers pedigree dogs.
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But there is no evidence that it has hit the bottleneck of birth defects from inbreeding often seen in declining populations.
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Combined with inbreeding and fluctuations in birth and death rates, extinction would have been likely on their timescale over 10,000 years.
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Cutting off animal populations in this fashion leads to reduced gene flow and inbreeding — leading to a greater risk of extinction.
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Caused by inbreeding, Cooper's vertebrae are fused together and compressed — leading him to have half the body that a normal dog would.
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Finally, in other cases, fish were picked at random to spawn, their eggs and sperm mixed in dishes, which led to inbreeding.
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This can lead to deaths by vehicle crashes and inbreeding due to the animals not being able to move around as much.
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Back in King's Landing, the High Sparrow bonds with young King Tommen, who demonstrates the effect inbreeding has had on his intelligence.
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The human aversion to incest is almost if not completely cross-cultural, Prause says, which may serve to help us avoid inbreeding.
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Now the wolf population, which once numbered as high as 50, has dwindled to two and is probably doomed because of inbreeding.
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Just as the roads keep native lions in, they also keep outside lions from entering, and first-order inbreeding has become common.
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The lynx -- like the ocelot -- is threatened by its small population and degree of inbreeding which becomes exacerbated by a physical barrier.
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They simulated the population change in response to changes in birth and death rates, inbreeding and a factor known as Allee effects.
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If they disappear—due to disease, climate change, inbreeding or other scenario—so could a large portion of what the planet eats.
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At a hatchery on the Klamath River, biologists are using genetic techniques to reduce inbreeding, though some argue natural methods are more effective.
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That was the case with this show, for which Vaughan considered the Habsburgs and their catastrophic inbreeding through the lens of digital images.
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In addition to being generally unsavory, inbreeding poses a significant threat to the long-term survival of lions in the Santa Monica Mountains.
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"Inbreeding is especially bad for bees because it increases the chances of producing sterile males which then drives the decline further," said Zayed.
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So it makes sense that humans would have evolved a way to avoid inbreeding as much as possible when choosing future mating partners.
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Island populations are subject to inbreeding and hence lowered reproduction rates, and grizzlies are among the least fecund of mammals to start with.
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To be fair, crossbows do appear to be the Lannister weapon of choice: Inbreeding isn't the only thing that runs in this family!
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In the case of sharks, this is possible through a form of inbreeding that is far from ideal in the grand scheme of evolution.
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Inbreeding reduces genetic diversity, for example (though that's not as problematic as you might think), and can cause a species to accumulate unhelpful mutations.
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PotatoesPhoto: Scott Bauer/USDA ARSScientists are trying to revolutionize potatoes and, in the process, cure the tubers' depression, the result of generations of inbreeding.
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This method risks creating lots of diseased embryos as a result of this inbreeding, but whole-genome screening could weed out the unhealthy ones.
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More allegations came out claiming many of his animals were deformed due to inbreeding and not giving the moms enough healthy food while pregnant.
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That said, DNA data indicates that dragon populations show signs of inbreeding, and they are vulnerable to local shortages of food and natural disasters.
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By sequencing the genome of every living bird, scientists can identify closely related individuals and prevent more inbreeding by putting them on different islands.
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In addition, because the survivors were more closely related to each other, there was also a greater risk of inbreeding among the remaining rats.
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Recognizing relatives can be important to avoid inbreeding, or to recognize previously unfamiliar kin, such as paternal half-siblings in species which have multiple paternity.
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There are only 333 great whites capable of breeding in South African waters, below the 500 usually needed to prevent "inbreeding depression," the study found.
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Trilobites Arctic foxes are endangered in Sweden, Norway and Finland, scattered in isolated populations that can fall victim to severe inbreeding, further threatening their survival.
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In 1997, a single male wolf immigrated from Canada to Isle Royale in Michigan, causing inbreeding levels to plummet by 89 percent in four years.
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But then his DNA overtook the entire Isle Royale wolf population, leading to a climb in inbreeding and genetic defects that proved to be devastating.
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Also unknown is whether the inbreeding between bear species provided any evolutionary advantage to the brown bears, something Dr. Barlow said he hoped to investigate.
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But who would have predicted that this product of Hollywood inbreeding (she called herself that) would have turned celebrity family dysfunction into such memorable writing?
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Mulder and Scully discover the Peacocks have a nasty habit of inbreeding, causing them to devolve to the point where they operate solely on animalistic instinct.
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Michelle Vaughan uses this loss to consider a similar attempt at perfection that resulted in absolute destruction: the inbreeding of the Spanish-Austrian Habsburg royal family.
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His excesses as king (and his instability due to Targaryen inbreeding) eventually led him to kill Ned Stark's father, Rickard Stark, and Ned's older brother Brandon.
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On that land clearing issue, once multiple habitats become disconnected for the long-term, you're upping the chances of koala inbreeding, so genetic diversity is reduced.
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It's thought that canine inbreeding may be partially to blame for the weak immune responses that allow CTVT to progress once inside of a new host.
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The researchers found that it was unlikely that inbreeding could be solely responsible for extinction because it only occurred in the model with the smallest population.
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At least one other possible external check on conceptual inbreeding in economics has been available for decades, ready-made in the writings of Norman O. Brown.
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Forty percent of kakapo eggs are infertile -- most likely as a consequence of inbreeding -- so Digby and his team have turned to technology to boost success rates.
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The weather was blistering on the Isle of Wight, a place that was recently dubbed a "poor, white ghetto" that suffers from "inbreeding" by Ofsted chairman David Hoare.
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With this method, two different parent varieties are cross-bred, and their offspring are selected through several cycles of self-pollination, or inbreeding, to get the desired result.
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But Ms. Whitehouse attributed that to inbreeding among the small number of animals, a phenomenon known as "genetic drift," rather than because of natural selection due to poaching.
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Captive giraffes of both genders tend to be removed from their family groups before they reach sexual maturity, to avoid inbreeding; many are then transferred to another zoo.
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Instead, the researchers suggest that inbreeding, small populations and fluctuations in birth, death and sex ratio would have been enough to lead the Neanderthals to their permanent end.
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Some speculative explanations for a potential uptick in the disorder have been put forward, including marine pollution, metabolic problems, or inbreeding due to a decreased, overfished gene pool.
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Once the spiderlings matured, the mother attacked the males that returned while females were still allowed in, perhaps to prevent inbreeding, according to the study published today in Science.
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The proliferation of new breeds is in part a product of "linebreeding," a type of inbreeding in which a close relative occurs more than once in a puppy's pedigree.
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In the aforementioned Al Jazeera article, pro-Nazi commentators make Holocaust jokes and call Jews "inbreeding winged Hebrew monkeys" in addition to various unmentionable expletives mocking Israelis and Jews.
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But the Vindija 33.19 genome is different; her parents were not as closely related, so we can no longer say that extreme inbreeding is a common fixture of the Neanderthals.
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Nepotism, or favoring kin, as well as the avoidance of close inbreeding is seen throughout the animal kingdom, which suggests the importance of being able to distinguish family from others.
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Because they have limited mating options, the cats may experience a phenomenon called inbreeding depression, which is a decrease in fitness and survival that can cause severe endangerment and extinction.
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The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Genetics on Monday, found evidence of large-scale inbreeding and signs of disease among the yellow-banded bumblebee, or Bombus terricola, population.
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Specifically, the government's recovery program would cause further geographic isolation of the wolves, suppressing their numbers and leading to greater inbreeding, said Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate with the center.
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One major drawback to this tactic is that the genetic pool from just two northern white cows and four bulls is extremely limited, and would likely lead to severe inbreeding.
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Among its key recommendations: Fish should no longer be inbred, a particular problem for the most endangered species because dwindling populations leave few mating choices (and a higher prospect of inbreeding).
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It is assumed that, over generations, inbreeding in the small, isolated Ecuadorian community led to children being born with copies of this gene inherited from both parents—which causes Laron syndrome.
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Multiple generations of inbreeding in the Targaryen line, where Jon + Dany are connected, would create a coefficient creeping up on 50% — brother-and-sister levels, by the math of one Redditor.
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After years of inbreeding, local Pekingese are perceived as having an array of health and other issues, including constant shedding, a lack of intelligence, and a susceptibility for slipped spinal discs.
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Or survival of the sickestOn the other hand, biologists know that there can be severe negative consequences for populations that lack genetic variation, similar to the risks of inbreeding in people.
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The second problem will be an increased chance of inbreeding, which makes it more likely for an animal to pass on a problematic genetic mutation—a phenomenon known to biologists as homozygosity.
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Decades of inbreeding has led to numerous genetic problems in purebred dogs—from dislocated hips in German Shepards to severe breathing issues in bulldogs—which equate to years of ongoing veterinary expenses.
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According to the Czech researchers, this lends credence to the theory that we're attracted to people who look less like us as an instinctual way to avoid inbreeding and promote genetic diversity.
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In 2004, he made headlines when animal rights groups pointed out he was holding a handicapped lion cub whose condition was most likely a result of inbreeding, which is irresponsible and dangerous.
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"When [animal] populations become isolated and very small, you can get things like inbreeding and depression," said Jesse Lasky, a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University who studies the border environment.
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That's not surprising, as we're often reminded the royal Targaryen family almost always practiced inbreeding to keep their line "pure" and bar any other families from claiming a right to the Iron Throne.
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Not only did the researchers not find anything that could benefit the tribe's health, they studied their genetic data—without members' consent—for schizophrenia, inbreeding, and migration, and published their findings in 2004.
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Inbreeding, which also doesn't happen with orcas in nature, started becoming common: SeaWorld had a male, Taku, who bred with his own mother, Katina, resulting in the birth of a calf named Nalani.
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Past studies of Neanderthal genomes found they contained a high number of recessive genetic traits characteristic of inbreeding, which led researchers to conclude that there were only a few thousand Neanderthals in Europe.
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This isolation has led to inbreeding, which makes populations less resilient and viable over time, according to the research, which was led by John Benson, a vertebrate ecologist at the University of Nebraska.
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But it is puzzling: If animals stay in one place for many generations, they run the risk of inbreeding, facing resource scarcity and other dangers that moving elsewhere could allow them to avoid.
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Des Esseintes is a dandy and aesthete, sickly from too much inbreeding, the last of his line, with strange and corrupting tastes, a love of apparel, jewellery, scents, rare books and fine bindings.
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Fiona Miles, director of Four Paws' South Africa operation, told PBS that some of the captive-bred residents of Lionsrock have deformities due to inbreeding, and none can safely be released into the wild.
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"The mountain lions in the Santa Ana Mountains were genetically restricted, meaning that they had a very low population size, low genetic variation, and inbreeding," says Trish Smith, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy.
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Critics call the operations, the "factory-farming of lions," pointing to substandard conditions and inbreeding, and noting that shooting an animal in an enclosed space is far different from stalking one in the wild.
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If this Founding Mother survived with at least some of her offspring, there may have been some inbreeding at first, but eventually, separate lineages would develop, allowing for a greater diversity of potential mates.
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Since then, however, 86 of the animals living in two state-run wildlife sanctuaries have died due to immune deficiencies from inbreeding, which made the animals vulnerable to deadly diseases, state wildlife authorities said.
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Through selective breeding, over breeding, and inbreeding, many of the most popular dog breeds (Pugs, Cavaliers, Bulldogs, German Shepards, Saint Bernards, Labrador Retrievers,Yorkshire Terriers, Boxers, Daschunds) now have absurdly and dangerously small gene pools.
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P-64, as the four-year old cat was officially designated, had previously given researchers hope that his travels might help end a human environment-abetted problem of inbreeding among mountain lions in the region.
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Genetically they had low diversity because of inbreeding and they were reduced to very low numbers, partly because an extreme and rapid change of climate was pushing them out of many of their former habitats.
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There used to be well over 100,000 lions in Africa a little more than a generation ago, but due to habitat loss, trophy hunting, inbreeding and poaching their numbers have dwindled to perhaps 213,000 today.
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Thai authorities maintained on Monday that the tigers were well taken care of at government sanctuaries and that they caught diseases like canine distemper virus or laryngeal paralysis because inbreeding had destroyed their immune system.
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This startling lack of genetic plasticity is the result of the breed's small genetic base (which was derived from 68 individuals back in 1835), intensive inbreeding, and breeders' selection of specific' and often extreme, physical traits.
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Now we have reached a point where some of the masses who lack the will to risk and succeed or fail, or the understanding of this, have accepted economic serfdom reinforced by generations of economic Keynesian inbreeding.
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This concern around the degradation of traditional values is also apparent in episodes dealing with visions of small-town America besieged by outsiders, infiltrated by heavy-metal music and satanic worship, and undermined from within by inbreeding.
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In a complicated family tree, their success could help reverse the damage caused by two generations of inbreeding: before finding P-45, P-19 twice mated with her father, who then also mated with one of their kittens.
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These patented seeds come with years of inbreeding by trial and error, which results in a crop that produces twice the average yield as what Chinese farmers have, and are more resistant to natural effects like pests and drought.
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The researchers allowed that if modern humans had any effect on Neanderthal extinction, it's possible that the Neanderthal populations may have shifted -- which could lead to inbreeding, a low birth rate and other factors accounted for in the study.
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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's much-criticized Tiger Temple tourist attraction on Monday blamed the government for the deaths of scores of its tigers seized by authorities in 2016, denying official accounts that the big cats died from inbreeding and disease.
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If one person tried to be both father and mother to a child, the resulting eggs and sperm would, without recourse to wholesale gene editing, combine to concentrate harmful mutations in what would amount to the ultimate form of inbreeding.
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All of this is to say that incest and inbreeding have been going on for so long—and so prevalently—in the polygamous sects along the Utah/Arizona border that these stories have been woven into the fiber of the communities.
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Props to Varys for being the first person to explicitly address the fact that Dany is Jon's aunt, but still, given the gravity of the situation and the Targaryen's propensity for inbreeding, it kind of feels like the practical solution.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's last woolly mammoths, sequestered on an Arctic Ocean island outpost, suffered from serious genetic defects caused by generations of inbreeding that may have hampered traits such as sense of smell and male fertility in the doomed population.
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This act of automotive inbreeding has been deemed illegal by both the Nevada Department of Transportation and the laws of God, and yet every year lucrative payoffs to the police department allow this nightmarish truck fuck-fest to happen again.
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In a study published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists from Sweden and Norway reported that just three new males dramatically reduced inbreeding and produced a generation of more robust offspring in the Helagsfjället arctic fox population.
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These higher survival and breeding rates help the authors "make the case that a reduction in inbreeding is helping this population grow," said Sarah Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor of integrative biology at Michigan State University not involved in the research.
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Dogs that are bred to look a specific way can run into health problems from inbreeding—hip dysplasia in large breed dogs such as Labrador Retrievers, and respiratory problems for flat-faced dogs such as pugs are two common concerns.
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Ordinarily, that's a big sign of trouble for a species, since it can mean the population has dwindled so low over time that they're forced to mate with their close relatives (and inbreeding can then raise the risk of dangerous, life-threatening mutations).
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And in the animal kingdom, inbreeding ranges from risky/taboo (humans, domesticated animals) to not a huge problem (the banded mongoose, certain sea lion populations) down to downright normalized (fruit flies, which prefer to mate with siblings, with no known ill effects).
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So the bird's guardians at the Kakapo Recovery Programme, run by New Zealand's Department of Conservation, have come up with a plan they hope will put the parrot on a more secure footing, by reducing, as far as possible, the risks inbreeding brings.
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"I really hope we can use this story to make it clear why it's so important to neuter your pets, not only to avoid unwanted litters but also to avoid inbreeding which can result in serious health and behavior problems in puppies," Boal added.
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" Honda believes Joffrey's disorder stems from "abuse from his father, distant mother, trauma from parental conflict and violence, looking like a girl and being teased — a detail that's in the books — inbreeding, mother drinking while pregnant, being told he's better than others, and poor parenting.
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Humanizing one of the world's most dehumanized populations, Lady Killers reveals that Báthory was a product of inbreeding, witnessed traumatizing violence during childhood, got engaged at 10, learned to torture and kill from her husband Nádasdy and companion Darvolya, and probably never bathed in blood.
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In case you need a refresher: Targaryens were even bigger fans of incest than the Lannister twins (and just look at the incompetent rulers that unholy union produced.) After generations of inbreeding, Targaryen genetics are a minefield of insanity just waiting to implode in fire and blood.
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I call it a "unibaby," produced by a "uniparent," not a clone but a new human very similar to its one parent At the step beyond unibabies are actual clones, the ultimate in genomic selection – from "I want that one!" to "I want me" – and inbreeding.
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" The publication also wrote that while McInnes postures himself as a defender of free speech, he usually invokes free speech principles to justify stuff like "the use of the N-word, or saying that Muslims are violent due to 'inbreeding,' or to simply rail in disgust at trans people.
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These wild dogs obviously aren't "pure" red wolves, but careful breeding efforts with these populations could be used to restore lost aspects of the species' genetic history and keep them healthy (inbreeding, as many a pug or bulldog owner knows well, raises the risk of serious hereditary problems).
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Environmentalists assert in the lawsuits that the government's recovery program cuts Mexican wolves off from their historic range in and around Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and the Southern Rocky Mountains, leading to geographic isolation and inbreeding that would diminish the size and health of wolf packs.
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Reviving species is controversial for a number of reasons, including the diminished quality of life for the clone (which will be subject to experiments during its entire life), the problem of genetic diversity and inbreeding, and the absence of an Ice Age habitat to host the revived species, among other limitations.
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Above, a map of the narwhal's distribution in the Arctic; below a graph of the narwhal's genetic diversity compared to other animals, with similar marine animals in blackGraphic: Lorenzen, et al (iScience)But the researchers found no evidence of much inbreeding in narwhals, and their population is plainly doing just fine.
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Biology defines inbreeding by "coefficient of relationship," or the percentage of shared ancestry, ranging from 603% for identical twins (who can't reproduce with one another, at least not until human cloning is a thing) down to 260% (or something very near it, presuming we're all from the same primordial soup).
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Dr. Delaney said she was not sure why these two out of the hundreds of mole rats that she has observed developed cancer, but she suggested that it could potentially be a result of their old age or genetic problems they had, possibly as a result of inbreeding within captive zoo colonies.
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Amazingly, scientists not long ago discovered that a remnant mammoth population on Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic held on until just a few thousand years ago, but their gene pool was too small, and they succumbed to inbreeding, also known as genetic decay — which is how isolated populations today often meet their end.
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They pointed out: the dangers inherent in intensively breeding animals from limited genetic stock, leading to the problems associated with inbreeding, including reduced viability and fertility; of offering captive bred animals to hunters, which many believe to be unethical and not "fair chase"; of diverting resources from other conservation as game farms focus on color variant animals to the detriment of other wildlife.
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For instance, studies have found out which phase of a woman's menstrual cycle is hottest to men based on smell; someone's body odor can be used to determine their sex, health, diet, even personality; and perhaps most usefully, it is possible to smell whether someone is a member of your family, "which is important in sexual selection in order to avoid inbreeding," the researchers write.
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Could also be a sadistic, murderous, beady-eyed boy-king with a punchable face, but odds are good that he'd be otherwise physically OK. Scientific research (and countless generations of observation) gives us a somewhat better understanding of the effects of widespread inbreeding among populations, where manifestations can include reduced fertility, increased genetic disorders, poor facial symmetry, higher infant mortality and immune system dysfunction.
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