Question for the microbiology/anthropology gurus

[shawn703]

I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are, since I only did a brief search on Google to get them. But it appears to me that there are about 11 trillion possible human DNA combinations (got this from http://dnacore.uc.edu/Profiling.asp). It has also been estimated that 106 billion humans have ever lived on the earth through 2002 (got this from http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=1820). But I will round this up to 110 billion to make the math easier.

Does that mean that there's a 1% chance that two unrelated people in human history have had the exact same DNA, just out of random luck?

I also wonder if that percentage would actually be higher, since I would imagine that quite a few of the 11 trillion possbile human DNA combinations wouldn't produce a viable human, and that natural selection would tend to give certain DNA combinations a better chance of repeating themselves over time.

Any thoughts, or does anyone know of someone who has tried to answer this question before?

[CanuckAmok]

1. I will ask my Microbiologist friend tonight...

...if you don't have an answer by then. She'll know.

[shawn703]

2. Thanks