Welcome to your Tuesday open thread. Looks like another hot week this week. Everyone remember to stay hydrated. Also, put your comments here, they may or may not be preserved infinitely. We like to keep you guessing.
The very latest genetic research says that all non-Africans are part Neanderthal. I wonder if the gene for red hair actually came from Neanderthals?
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2011) — Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.
“This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East.
…
Dr. Labuda and his team almost a decade ago had identified a piece of DNA (called a haplotype) in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they quickly compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.
“There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details,” says Dr. Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in this study.
I wonder if we’ll find other Neanderthal markers in our DNA. It will be fascinating to find out how much early humans intermarried. They lived at the same times in the same areas.
Finally women’s genitalia gets the tribute it deserves. Apparently it’s the center of civilization.
