BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhuanet)-- Scientists are planning to study how humanity have spread all over the world, the National Geographic Society and IBM said on Wednesday.

    

The DNA samples will be gathered from cheek swabs collected from participants around the world.

This project, called "Genographic", is a five-year genetic anthropology study aiming to trace the migratory history of humans, and help fill in the blanks of how and where people moved to populate the planet.

    The Genographic Project, sponsored by the National Geographic Society and IBM, will use sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA to study 100,000 or more samples of people.

    "Genetics, I think, resoundingly has answered the question of where we ultimately came from, we came out of Africa. And we came out quite recently, within the last 50 or 60 thousand years," said director of the project Wells, a population geneticist, an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.

    Experts in related fields such as population genetics, archeology, evolution science, linguistics and paleontology will help in the five-year project.

    Teams in China, Russia, India, Lebanon, Brazil, South Africa, Paris, Britain and Australia have signed on to help. Enditem

    (Agencies)