Scientists at the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical Science have created the world’s most detailed genetic map. The genetic map would identify the specific areas in the genetic material of a sperm or egg where the DNA from the mother and father has been reshuffled in order to produce this single reproductive cell. This process is named as recombination.

The genetic map which has been developed so far has been developed from people of European ancestry, but this new map is the first one to be constructed from African American recombination genomic data. David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, who co-led the study with Simon Myers, a lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford said that this is the world's most accurate genetic map. The study has been published in this week’s Nature.

The researchers were astonished to find the positions where recombination occurs in African Americans, and they are significantly different from non-African population.

Simon Myers, a lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford said, “more than half of African Americans carry a version of the biological machinery for recombination that is different than Europeans. As a result, African Americans experience recombination where it almost never occurs in Europeans".