Toe Fossil Provides Complete Neanderthal Genome

[hue]

Source: The New York Times (Science)

Scientists have extracted the entire genome of a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal from a single toe bone in a Siberian cave, an accomplishment that far outstrips any previous work on Neanderthal genes.

The accuracy of the new genome is of similar quality to what scientists would achieve if they were sequencing the DNA of a living person.

“It’s an amazing technical accomplishment,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, an expert on human evolution at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research. “Twenty years ago, I would have thought this would never be possible.”

The new Neanderthal genome, which is described in the current issue of Nature, is part of an extraordinary flurry of advances in studying ancient human DNA. Earlier this month, for example, scientists reconstructed a small segment of genes from a 400,000-year-old fossil in Spain, setting a record for the oldest human DNA ever found.

Read more: Linhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/science/toe-fossil-provides-complete-neanderthal-genome.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=SC_TFP_20131219&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1385874000000&bicmet=1388638800000&fblinkge0&_r=1&k to source

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This is so cool!!

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I think we ought to create one.

Then give the lady (assuming it's female) a proper liberal education & use her example to prove that the Republicans are nowhere near as advanced as Homo neandertalensis.

[snot]

2. I know it raises HUGE ethical problems; but we've GOT to make one!

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Experimental paleontology--a whole new discipline.

It would sure as hell answer questions like whether H. Neander was capable of language. (I'd bet pretty good money they were. I've believed that ever since I took physical anthro more than 50 years ago, even though I was in a pretty small minority.)

[Octafish]

11. Didn't GEICO first address this issue?

And they saved 15-percent on auto insurance.

[closeupready]

12. They DID. I saw that commercial, too.

[hunter]

13. Odds are the genes still exist among us.

And I doubt very much they were the dumb, mean brutes depicted as "cave men."

We, Homo sapiens, are the dumb mean brutes.

Neanderthals likely had sophisticated extended family structures and cooperative natures.

I imagine the "us versus them" mentality wasn't as strong in Neanderthals, which is why they did not survive as a community in competition with the bloody minded, religiously insane, hyper-tribal, "modern" humans.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Actually, there's data on that.

In short, modern African populations have little if any Neandertal ancestry, but European & (to a somehat lesser extent) Asian populations have 1-3% or so Neandertal genes, with the highest percentages in some Tyrolean areas

[JEFF9K]

3. The thought of Neanderthals making a comeback is kind of scary. ...

... It would be a whole new voting block for Republicans.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. They were pretty communual.

I'm betting they were proto-socialists.

[geardaddy]

7. They'd probably all become lawyers

"Ladies and gentlemen of the City Council, I'm just a caveman... Your world frightens and confuses me. When I see your tall buildings and flashing neon signs, sometimes I just want to get away as fast as I can, to my place in Martha's Vineyard. I'm more at home hunting the woolly mammoth than I am hunting a good interior decorator. And when I see a solar eclipse, like the one I went to in Hawaii last week, I think 'Oh no, is the moon eating the sun?', because I'm a caveman... but there is one thing I do know. The new resort housing development proposed by my partners and myself will include more than adequate greenbelts for recreation and aesthetic enhancement. Thank you. (smug grin)"

[sybylla]

9. Neanderthals never left. They just assimilated.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/30919/title/Neanderthal-DNA-in-Modern-Humans/flagPost/60484/
Neanderthal DNA in Modern Humans
Non-African people carry remnants of the Neanderthal X chromosome, suggesting interbreeding with early human ancestors.

...Thanks to last year’s complete sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, the researchers could compare the genomes of more than 6,000 modern humans with the ancient hominid, and found similar intronic sequences on the Neanderthal X chromosome, as well as on the X of people from all continents except sub-Saharan Africa. The results are published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

“There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating [of] our ancestors and Neanderthals,” Nick Patterson of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University said in a press release. “This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details.”

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Yup--That's the work I was alluding to above

before I saw your post.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Just think of the Hollywood movies

"Neanderthal Takes Manhattan"

and the poor Neanderthal is going to need a
caveman of a psychiatrist just to deal with
the culture shock

[adieu]

8. I doubt culture shock

But biological shock, for sure. Such an entity might not be able to survive in the current human environment's germs and bacteria. Culturally, should he or she survive the biological aspects, would be not hard to join in. It's not as though it has a memory of neanderthal culture.

[Enthusiast]

10. Those that continue to deny human evolution

in the face of such evidence are at this point just being difficult.

[yurbud]

14. okay, who wants to volunteer to care the neanderthal clone baby?