Neanderthal Genome to be Sequenced

Aneurysm writes "A project launched by the Max-Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology will sequence the genome of Neanderthal man. The sequencing project may find out important information, such as whether they cross-bred with modern humans. Previous DNA tests have tested this theory, and found it unlikely. Could this be the start of a Pleistocene park?"

Comments

According to my girlfriend...

[esobofh]

I could have easily supplied the necessary sample for testing...

Re:According to my girlfriend...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should promptly club her over the head for suggesting such a thing!

I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[nizo]

From wikipedia: Also, while they [Neanderthals] had weapons, they were not used as projectile weapons. They had spears in the sense of a long wooden shaft with an arrow head firmly attached to it, but spears were first used as projectiles by Homo sapiens.

Three guesses why they are gone and we aren't? It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Dunbal]

It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.

I guess s/he wouldn't feel much different than any of the other human ethnic groups that were almost wiped out over the years, in almost all parts of the world. Still it will be interesting to find out if this humanoid also had fewer genes than your average rice plant...

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[FleaPlus]

To steal someone else's joke, would a cloned Neanderthal be eligible for the NFL draft?

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's doubtful. Neanderthals and Europeans co-existed for a maximum of 15,000 years. That's a long time. If they could figure out how to make a spear, they could easily figure out how to throw them if at least in immitation of humans.

Neanderthals were far, far physically stronger, so they would've been quite capible of using them.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[meringuoid]

It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.

They're extinct because of us, but probably not because our ancestors murdered them all, in character for H. Sapiens though that would certainly be. At the Skhul cave in Israel there's pretty good evidence for moderns and Neanderthals living alongside each other for thousands of years in the same cave system.

More likely the Neanderthals were just outcompeted for resources by our ancestors, as the ice ages came and went, and gradually went extinct. Not that I'd be surprised if someone found a mass grave of Neanderthals with distinctly modern-looking arrowheads in their skulls... after all, our species does enjoy killing.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[cheesybagel]

That is one theory for the extinction, that homo sapiens killed them. Here is another theory which I think may have some merit:

One of prehistory's big questions is: Why did the Neanderthals become extinct at roughly the same moment that Homo sapiens arrived from Africa? At Sopena we may learn if there were significant differences in behaviors that gave an edge to modern humans. Could it have been diet or the way they processed food?

Yes. We look for remains like bones, charcoals from their fires and tools. From this we can learn how their diet changed over time. It's like we're digging through prehistoric domestic waste. Isotopic analysis of Neanderthal bones shows that they were almost entirely carnivores.

They mostly ate meat. And you need carbohydrates. We're finding that modern humans, coming from Africa, had a diet much more variable than Neanderthals. It's always been thought about the Neanderthal extinction that Homo sapiens appeared in Europe and outcompeted Neanderthals. But it's not so easy. Forty thousand years ago was the last ice age. In that time, many animals became extinct. If Neanderthals survived on mammal meat, and those animals were nowhere to be found, they were in trouble. And then you had modern man coming in from Africa, where there weren't seasons. They were eating seafood and vegetables and grasses, even fat extracted from bones by boiling them. It is possible this gave them an edge. We may find out.

In short, we survived because we had a more varied diet than they had. It may also explain why Neanderthals were taller than we are (they ate more meat), and why people have been getting taller from the XXth century onwards contrary to what was expected (inexpensive meat is more commonly available).

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Rei]

The problem is that almost everything went extinct when we moved on in. Whether we directly hunted them down or just disrupted the ecosystem/carried disease/etc is a good question, but wherever humans went, large fauna died off in huge numbers. Some of Australia's megafauna may be an exception, but it's just that: an exception. Places where humans didn't get to early on had megafauna last longer - for example, Wrangel Island had mammoths holdouts till the time of the Pharaohs.

Neanderthals were taller than we are

No.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[captain_blie]

Consider the moral dilemma that cloning a Neanderthal would bring.

Do they get rights and are they protected?

1. A test bed for medicinal experiments.
2. Are their organs compatible with ours? Could we have them living in pens only to be slaughtered when we need a new heart?
3. How about cross breeding? Is it possible, do the children have rights?
4. Cheap labor force aka slavery? Or would it be more like a beast of burden?

Since we don't respect the Chimpanzee why would we respect a Neanderthal? What if it can learn to talk and recognize itself does it get rights then?

The only species that we humans seem to value is homo sapiens.

I am not a member of PETA, just some thoughts on my mind.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[SysSupport]

so I am still left to wonder why they are gone and we are still here.

Because the Monolith landed on our side of the river.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[MightyMartian]

This seems the most likely explanation. The latest Neandertal remains found, from Gibraltar, indicate a population that had been pushed to the margins, and to such low numbers that they could not be sustained. We can only guess at how well Moderns and Neandertals got along, though my understanding is that, towards the end, there was some innovation in their toolkits, suggesting they may have been very different from us, but still capable of attempting to catch on to the new wave.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[ultranova]

Are you sure this is such a hot idea?

As a member of a minority living near the arctic circle, I find your implication that "hot" equates "good" and that, therefore, it's opposite, "cold", equates "bad", extremely insulting, and demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further usage of such hatefull terms in public discourse. Furthermore, I demand a compensation of $100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion US dollars) for the mental anguish your thermal prejudices have caused me.

Failure to comply will result in retaliatory measures to be carried out by trained polar bears.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[BerntB]

Check out the author William Calvin.

He is a brain researchers that write about (amongs other things) the evolution of human intelligence. (He even wrote a book about Neanderthals.) One of his theses is that throwing might have been a driver for human intelligence.

If I remember correctly...
To hit something you have to send more or less a symphony of nerve signals down the arm without waiting for feedback. Because the exact time of release is shorter than the average time random wait for nerve signals, they even have to go parallell and be averaged in the muscles.

Then there is distance measurements that needs to be done well in the visual system. Etc.

In short, it is a complex problem that needs lots of evolved specialized circuitry.

(I always wondered about fast running animals, here. The way they set their feet down while running should be as complex a problem as throwing? But those that run fast on the planet don't have hands.)

I think I can safely say that Calvin thinks the Neanderthals would have been hard pressed to learn to throw.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[MightyMartian]

The problem for the megafaunal extinction-human expansion link is that it doesn't seem terribly likely that there were that many humans in the Americas at the time.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Rei]

The time period between human arrival and extinction is hard to quantify exactly, but is likely several thousand years. With few native human-infecting diseases, no human-aware predators, and huge potential unused foodstocks, human populations can explode rapidly (do the math; assume three children make it to maturity for every two adults, on average 20 years apart, for 1000 years, you get the over-the-top figure of 600 million times as many people as arrived. Humans grow to fill the available resources very well :) ).

Even still, the "hunting every last one" concept can be hard for many to swallow. A more commonly accepted notion is that it's a combination of factors; unfavorable climate, heavy hunting, ecosystem distruption (both flora and fauna), introduction of new diseases and parasites, etc.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[The Lynxpro]

"In the last 50 years or so, Europeans have become on average about 2 cm taller than Americans. I'd guess (though I'm not sure) that Americans eat more meat than Europeans."

I don't believe that such averages can be attributed to diet/nutrition/prenatal/obesity. Compare the level of immigration to the United States over the past 50 years from Asian countries versus how many Asians moved to Europe over that same period of time. There's your explanation.

I mean, just look around and see how "white" Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans are all getting taller than the prior generations. I'm of that first category (and partly of the last) and I'm 2 inches taller than my father, who in turn is 2 inches taller than his father, and the mothers have all been around the same height too.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[cens0r]

We don't have to hunt everyone. If the large animal only has offspring once every 2-3 years, takes 10 years to become sexually mature, and has a litter of one; you don't have to kill too many until you put a large dent in their reproductive rate.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Rei]

the more likely we are to *NOTICE* that it went extinct

We notice animals that survive, too. Smaller animals have higher survival rates, plain and simple.

Very few (no?) large animals survived the extinction

The K-T extinction had only a slightly higher megafauna extinction rate than that wrought during human expansion. The extinction during the last ice age was the largest, among megafauna, in the past 65 million years. The K-T extinction was a lot worse on small animals than the Pliestocene extinction, although it still focused on megafauna.

Even if it is true that many large animals died off around 10K BC

You better believe it; it's about as close to a scientific consensus as you can get.

This is still perfectly consistant with the ice age

That it is not. As mentioned previously:

1) Far worse ice ages have occurred in the past, without anything at all like what we saw at the end of the Pliestocene. This extinction was the worst since the K-T extinction 65 million years prior - a huge amount of time (and ice ages!).

2) The extinction timings varied around the world, and were not timed to regional ice age variations; the only correlating factor was the arrival of humans.

3) There is one place in the world that was strangely unaffected by megafauna extinctions: Africa. The place where humans and the native animals coevolved.

About the only serious evidence-based argument against the "humans did it" line of argument is that there's a paucity of fossil evidence of sudden dieoffs. Yet, it's pretty clear to most that this is a rather weak argument.

For one, you're looking for a single stratum that in most places would last only a decade; you can expect that stratum to not exist in the vast majority of the world. Secondly, it is almost impoissible to find the remains of the thousands of modern elephants killed by poachers and in herd culls in Africa. The simple fact is that fossilization is a very rare event, and the only reason that we have so many fossils total is because they accumulate over geological time periods. The fossil evidence shows what you would expect to find: in each place, the animals abruptly dissapear from the fossil record at almost the same time that humans arrive, irregardless of climate or other such factors in the particular region.

We've even watched this happen in modern times; read up about the Moa of New Zealand, for starters. New Zealand, if I recall correctly, has about the land area of New Mexico, and is incredibly rugged terrain; hardly an "easy" place to cause an extinction. Yet, the Maori did it with extreme skill. The only large quantities of butchered Moa fossils are in relatively small Maori campsites. Odds are miniscule that these campsites would preserve over geological time, let alone preserve and be rediscovered.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I wouldn't like to bet that going head-head up against a tribe of taller, more muscular meat eaters that eat game they catch themselves would end in a good way. You're quite likely to find yourself getting hunted and eaten, or atleast dead, even if you do have better weapons.

It may very well be that humans kept out of their way as much as possible; kinda like the way Cheetahs and Lions do. We'd be like the smaller and more delicate Cheetahs.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[lawpoop]

"Even still, the "hunting every last one" concept can be hard for many to swallow."

I think if you look at how modern humans treat each other, which numerous extermination attempts between ethnic groups, I don't think it's too hard to imagine a group of homo sapiens hunting down all Neanderthals, and being relatively successful if they have greater intelligence and/or weaponry.

We have seen genocide all throughout the Bible, mass extermination in early American History, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Humans seem to have this built-in response to de-humanize another ethnic group, comparing them to animals, in order to go to war against them. They pin outrageous crimes on them, and then convince themselves that if anybody from the other group lives, there will always be a threat to the group. In the case of Neanderthals, they technically *were* animals, and Homo Sapiens probably had no problem justifying eating them, or exterminating them wholesale.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[mikael]

(I always wondered about fast running animals, here. The way they set their feet down while running should be as complex a problem as throwing? But those that run fast on the planet don't have hands.)


Running gaits in animals are pre-programmed sequences - they have to be, as many of the new-born animals have to be able to stand up within hours of birth.

Given all the possible combinations of limb movements that are possible, only a few match the requirements of maintaining centre of gravity and not having front and back legs hitting each other, or creating bone-jarring shocks.

From various horse breeding sites:

Contrary to popular belief; trotting horses do not "teach" gaited horses to trot. Nor do gaited horses teach trotting horses to gait. Horses inherit the gait they perform best, from one of their parents, or a combination of both and can be taught something different only under saddle.


Basic Gaits

Lateral Gaits

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[ozmanjusri]

And to prove that I have the sickest mind around, I bet the females were pretty easy to milk.

I might have agreed with this if you'd suggested milking males. I notice cheese wasn't mentioned either.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[modecx]

Having the ability of saying "Neener Neener Neener I told you so!" to adherent biblical creationists? That alone has to be worth what, a few billion or so?

Maybe (s)he could romp around and create another cinema masterpeice with Pauly Shore--or become a Senator?!

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[ryusen]

As a member of the People for the Ethical Treament of Animals, i find it deplorable and sickening that you would use these great and noble animals to fight your battles for you. I demand that you compensate our organization $100,000,000,000 US; none of which will actually got to the bears themselves, but help further our causes, such as running almost naked through Spain with bull horns taped to our heads.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[OldManAndTheC]

Humans seem to have this built-in response to de-humanize another ethnic group, comparing them to animals, in order to go to war against them.

There is a good, albeit unpalatable, explanation for the genocide of other ethnic groups: genetic self interest. IIRC Dawkins makes a good case for this in The Selfish Gene.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Dunbal]

AS a member of SCO, I hereby inform you that we own the patent on "running around naked with horns on our heads". Since you are clearly infringing on our patent we demand $100,000,000,000 US for compensation.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[(negative video)]

And did you know that Neaderthals had 7-8% more brain capacity than Homo Sapiens?

Yeah, but it was all in Broca's area. What were they going to do, rhyme us to extinction?

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[Alsee]

I mean, just look around and see how "white" Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans are all getting taller than the prior generations. I'm of that first category (and partly of the last) and I'm 2 inches taller than my father, who in turn is 2 inches taller than his father

Well there you go, proof of young earth creationism! 6,000 years ago Adam and Eve were 2 inches tall.

-

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[cahiha]

It would be quite different. Different ethnic groups and "races" are biologically almost identical to each other. But Neanderthal seems to be a different species. Having another intelligent species on the planet (again) would be a huge change for us.

AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[Anonymous Coward]

July 06, 2005: Project to sequence genome of Neanderthal Man begins.
September 3, 2009: Genome of Neanderthal Man sequenced.
March 21, 2012: Neanderthal Man cloned.
April 4, 2015: Neanderthal Man reaches the point of being able to form, in a grunting, slurred speech, individual english words.
April 5, 2015: Neanderthal Man starts blog

Re:AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[Anonymous Coward]

April 6, 2015: Slashdot posts article on Neanderthal blogs.
April 9, 2015: Slashdot posts article on Neanderthal blogs.

Re:AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[AllahsAvatar]

January 20, 2001: Neanderthal Man became persident of the US

Re:AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[millahtime]

July 06, 2005: Project to sequence genome of Neanderthal Man begins.
September 3, 2009: Genome of Neanderthal Man sequenced.
March 21, 2012: Neanderthal Man cloned.
April 4, 2015: Neanderthal Man reaches the point of being able to form, in a grunting, slurred speech, individual english words. April 5, 2015: Neanderthal Man starts blog

- ????
- Neanderthal Man gets rich

Re:AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[youknowmewell]

June 10th, 2050, Soviet Russian Neanderthal man clones Homo Sapien.
June 10th, 2051, Homo Sapien declared the other white meat.

Re:AMAZING ADVANCES IN SCIENCE

[sconeu]

April 8, 2030 - Neanderthal Becomes lawyer.

I'm just a poor cloned Neanderthal. Your world confuses and frightens me.

Even a caveman can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gene sequencing is so simple even a caveman can do it.

Re:Even a caveman can do it.

[RollTissue]

That is SO condescending...

Genome?

[Koiu Lpoi]

So, this only gets the 10% of the DNA considered 'useful', right? I read somewhere the rest is actually more important than what we consider. What's the deal?

Re:Genome?

[Rei]

Our "Junk" DNA is somewhat interesting in that it often contains functionality of our close (and sometimes even distant) relatives that is no longer active. You get neat atavisms when it reactivates.

Re:Genome?

[Nutty_Irishman]

The 10% that we consider useful is also the most useful in terms of comparative genetics. Coding regions tend to have the highest evolutionary selective pressure to not mutate/evolve in a fashion that is completly random or detrimental.

We are beginning to move into the era where non-coding regions are becoming important as well (enhancer, promoter regions, etc.), but they provide more fine tuned differences in the species (transcription factor binding efficiencies, etc.). (I use fine tuned in a very broad sense here, as it is entirely possible that one of these fined tuned process can cause an event where the gene gets entirely turned off permanantly-- as is the case with stem cell differentation)

One thing to consider is that genes are easy to compare and we understand coding regions better than non-coding regions in part because we can actually visualize how the coding DNA is going to work/look like in it's protein representation (translational suppression, etc. aside). We know that an insertion/deletion/mutation causes a change in the coding regions, which causes a change in the codon of the protein, which in turn causes a change in how the protein/folds and henceforth its function. Non-coding regions are difficult, they represent possible binding reactions between thousands of other transciption factors (genes), and there is a large lack of understanding in how the genes effect chromosome structure. We just don't know enough about the non-coding regions to understand how similarities/differences in the non-coding genome are affected in evolution.

The best analogy I can give is it's like comparing two different car. The coding regions would be things that are very tractable for us, the color, the number of doors, the type of car, the engine, etc. The non coding regions would be like trying to understand the wiring/programming behind the engine with knowing very little engineering. Sure, how it's wired and programmed is important, but saying that two red wires seem to be connected in a similar fashion means that they must function similarly often falls short. You don't know where those wires run to , and you don't fully understand how the components that they connect to fit into the big picture of how the engine works.

I wouldn't be suprised if in time these non-coding regions become more important for comparative genomics in the long run, but it will take some time before we get to that point.

"Could this be the start of a Pleistocene park?"

[TobyWong]

"Could this be the start of a Pleistocene park?"

Nah my nephew has been working on a pleistocene park for a while now. He's got the swings, sandbox, and slide done (he had the see-saws done too but he accidentally stepped on them). If you want to pitch in he could use some help with the merri-go-round I'm sure.

He was originally using playdough but I caught him eating it one too many times so I switched him over to pleistocene.

back problems

[millahtime]

What if they find it's the same DNA we have and it tuns out they just had some serious back problems?

Re:back problems

[PakProtector]

Gravity is more than just a theory. We can perform an experiment and prove it. Gravity can be observed. Evolution is different. We have not observed it happening and have not been able to perform an experiment to prove it. Gravity and Evolution are not comparable in the way you suggest.

The hell they aren't. Bacteria evolve in a course of mere days and weeks in petri dishes in labs.

And Gravity is nothing more than a theory: Like everything else, the theory of gravity was designed to explain why something happened.

The theory of evolution was designed to explain why something happened (namely, speciation.)

Please, do some damn research next time before bashing a theory.

Re:back problems

[Dunbal]

We have not observed it happening and have not been able to perform an experiment to prove it.

You are obviously not a microbiologist dealing with antibiotic resistance issues...evolution in action!

Re:back problems

[Dunbal]

And you obviously don't know the difference between creating new information and destroying the genes regulating the production of "anti-antibiotics".

Actually I do. Can you prove to me that methicillin resistance or vancomycin resistance (for example) occured OUTSIDE a hospital or lab setting? Oh sure, those plasmids are out in the wild NOW. But the mutation or "new" information happened in a bug that was eventually exposed to those antibiotics. How much penicillin resistance was reported in the 1950's?

Re:back problems

[Dunbal]

Last I checked, fungi grow in the wild.

And I suppose some Mycobacteria are just "naturally" resistant to rifampin, and some Candida co-incidentally have "always" been resistant to Amphotericin B. Strange how some Enterococci suddenly became resistant to Vancomycin, a SYNTHETIC and completely new class of antibiotic...why they would carry those genes around for millions of years is beyond me... maybe they knew that humans would one day develop it. Oh, and if I follow your line of thought I am sure there must be some linezolid (another brand new synthetic) resistant organisms around too, waiting to express in a few years' time the resistance genes that they have always had.

No my friend, mutations and genetic change happens regularly. Those that benefit from it survive better, and pass that advantage to their offspring. Those changes that don't provide a benefit but rather cause harm we call disease (which can also get passed on). Changes that don't harm and don't give an advantage don't get noticed, but they still occur. This process is called evolution and it happens because DNA polymerase does not make perfect copies, but rather it messes up about 1 in 50,000 replications. That number hasn't been pulled out of the air, but rather has been measured and is in any biochemistry text. Apparently it's impossible for some people to accept these simple facts.

I'm sure you would be surprised to learn

We don't have to agree, but this remark is designed to provoke an emotional rather than intellectual response. This is a shame because you hardly ever get a rational reply out of an emotionally triggered person, and that makes it difficult to carry out a sensible argument. I am confident in my academic standing and am not surprised at all. Rather you are the one who is showing a lack of understanding of the subject. But carry on, by all means.

Oasis?!?

[daniil]

They are going to clone Liam Gallaher!?

Yes! Imagine the possibilities....

[The Lynxpro]

I've always thought it was foolish to speculate that modern humans and Neanderthals did not interbreed. Especially considering such people as the late Andre the Giant who actually resembles a Neanderthal. Although the Giant is no longer part of this mortal coil, perhaps this team could compare their findings with the DNA of Andre's American daughter, if her and her mother consented.

I can also see DARPA being interested in the findings. There is value in modifying soldiers of the future with the muscle mass that the Neanderthals enjoyed. And I'm sure the Chinese military would also be interested in such application(s). The question in my mind is which of these two military powers will be the first serious about the subject, either officially or behind closed doors...

And out of curiousity, could the gene sequencing be a project fit for BOINC? I know I'd be interested in donating my spare CPU cycles to the project.

what if....

[rwven]

What if they sequence it and it turns out to be a common ape or something that we already have around here... thing are not always as they seem as lucy and piltdown proved. (both proven "hoaxes." More accurate definition would be "mistake...")

Just playing devils advocate... :-)

Re:what if....

[geekwithsoul]

Ahem! Lucy was not a hoax!

Try this link, I believe the doctor is in . . .
http://www.asu.edu/clas/iho/lucy.html

Re:what if....

[MightyMartian]

What if they sequence it and it turns out to be a common ape or something that we already have around here... thing are not always as they seem as lucy and piltdown proved. (both proven "hoaxes." More accurate definition would be "mistake...")

First off, where the hell do you get the idea that Lucy was a hoax? Perhaps you would like to tell Dr. Donald Johansen, the man that discovered her. She was very real. Yes, Piltdown was a hoax, but it became ever more a problem for researchers as fossils from other parts of the world were discovered. But I repeat, Lucy was not a hoax, no matter what lying Creationists (some Christians eh?) say.

As to Neandertal, it had a brain slightly bigger than ours, was a tool-user and bipedal. They may not have been human if you take only members of H. sapiens as humans, but they were pretty damn close.

What's left of them?

[Jafafa Hots]

Some scientists believe that homo sapiens replaced Neaderthals, with the Neanderthals dying off completely.
Some believe we interbred with them and "absorbed" them.

This may be able to tell us which is true. I wonder though, if we do find out that we absorbed them through interbreeding, will this eventually lead to discrimination against those of us who still harbor "caveman genes?"

Re:What's left of them?

[spike hay]

Except that research shows that the human gene pool has a rather significant bottleneck, wherein we all descend from a small set of individuals not to far in the past. There is so little genetic variation in humans that if some of us have Neanderthal genes, then all of us do.

No, the genetic bottleneck occured far before homo sapiens escaped Africa and made contact with Neanderthals in Europe and the Middle East. H. Sapiens only reached Europe around 45,000 years ago. The genetic bottleneck occured 150,000 years ago or so in sub-Saharan Africa when humanity almost went extinct.

Thus, Asians and especially sub-Saharan Africans would show no Neanderthal genes, while caucasians would, if there was interbreeding.

Re:What's left of them?

[nusuth]

AFAIK we have not sampled nuclear neanderthal DNA yet, therefore completely unable to tell whether any of our DNA came from them.

OTOH neanderthal mithocondrial DNA is sampled and found to be singificantly different from Homo Sapiens'. That means we have no neanderthal grandmothers, which makes interbreeding theory *very* unlikely.

A remote possibility is neandethal females were unable to carry half-HS offspring but HS females could. That is unlikely for at least three reasons:

a) The distance between m-DNAs suggest the difference between n-DNA too great to interbreed

b) There is no mechanism we know of that would make neandarthal mothers unable to carry half-breeds while HS mothers can.

c) And finally, I made the theory on the spot and I'm not even a biologist

Re:What's left of them?

[jc42]

Asians and especially sub-Saharan Africans would show no Neanderthal genes, while caucasians would, if there was interbreeding.

Some years ago, I read an interesting article on the topic; it's too bad that I don't recall where. It was a takeoff on the old suggestion that if you were to take a typical Neandertal, dress him/her up in modern clothes, and drop him/her down anywhere in Europe, nobody would notice anything at all odd about the visitor.

Part of the article was a list of the major physical features of the Neandertals. Most of these features appear individually in modern humans everywhere, but you find combinations of most of them only in Europeans. This is suggestive of interbreeding, but not convincing. These features could all be adaptive in Europe for reasons we don't fully understand, and the Cro Magnon invaders could have developed them independently for the same reasons.

Anyway, since then I've sorta been on the lookout for individuals that show most of the list of Neandertal features. Since I live in the Boston area, that's mostly where I've looked. I do tend to forget about it most of the time, but when someone with the right features shows up, my subconscious does tend to bring it to my attention. Sort of a subtle (and somewhat silly) social game.

A couple of years ago, while driving down Commonwealth Ave (near Cleveland Circle), while stopped at a light, I noticed an attractive womon in the crosswalk. Nothing odd there. But the "Neanderthal!" flag went off, and I looked closer. She showed pretty much all the features, and might have passed in Neandertal Europe 100,000 years ago (except for the clothes). She even had faint brow ridges, unusual for modern human females. And was she ever sexy. A bit on the "zaftig" side, as one might expect. But well worth a third or fourth look. So much for the "primitive brute" image. And if she had met a Cro-Magnon male 100,000 years ago, I know exactly how he would have reacted.

I was tempted to walk over and introduce myself. But a common Boston problem intervened: There was no parking space visible anywhere. Oh, well; so much for that idea.

Anyway, it's a fun game. Probably not significant of much. But the fact that good matches so far have all been white people is a bit suggestive that it's not totally coincidence when these features come together.

(I do have a couple of friends who match most of the feature set. I haven't told any of them. Maybe I should some day.)

Re:What's left of them?

[Jafafa Hots]

"I was tempted to walk over and introduce myself."

I can only imagine what your opening line would have been.

Re:What's left of them?

[jc42]

Heh. I've sometimes wondered what sort of reactions I'd get from a few possible comments.

"So tell me about your Neanderthal ancestors."

"Has anyone ever said how Neanderthal you look?"

I'd assume that most people who have the Neandert[h]al physical features are not aware of the fact. I think that if I had them, I'd take a "Hey, how 'bout dat?" attitude. I don't actually have any of the features, and I was actually a bit disappointed to learn this. I think it'd be fun to tell people that I'm part Neanderthal. But I'd guess that some people might react differently.

Oh, well; I can always use another of my explantions: When people ask me what I "do", I like to tell them that I'm an anthropologist. I'm stationed on Earth to study humans. Very interesting newly-discovered species, y'know. Gotta document them thoroughly while they're still in their primitive, single-planet state, and before they exterminate themselves.

It's especially fun, when they ask me if I'm not violating some secrecy rule, to tell them that there isn't any such rule. After all, you can tell humans the absolute truth, and they don't believe you. The very few who do are dismissed by the rest as nut cases. You don't believe me, do you? So why should we bother with secrecy?

Uh?

[adius]

>found it unlikely.

Ahem, you are talking about one of the horniest species on this planet.

Life Imitating Art

[KrackHouse]

He's 40,000 years old. Deep within an Arctic glacier they found him preserved by a miracle of nature, brought back to life by a miracle of science. Now medical science wants to exploit him in the name of research. One man wants to stop them ...in the name of humanity. But he'll need more than a miracle to survive ... he'll need a friend.

In case anybody is thinking this would make a good movie, it's been done.

"Genome"

[No Such Agency]

The genome is ALL the genetic material, both transcribed genes (which make RNA molecules and then proteins) and the so-called "junk DNA". The latter, it turns out, is not remotely "junk", but contains important regulatory sequences which control gene activation/deactivation and the physical structure of the chromosomes.

Pleistocene park & Cave Women

[syntap]

Cool... will it then be legal to pay twenty bucks, run in, and whack some prehistoric ho over the head with a club and drag her off? And I was thinking we'd have to wait for virtual reality to get better!

Oh great

[youknowmewell]

So now I suppose there will be headlines on /. that read "Neanderthal Genome has been Sequenced" and "Neanderthal cloned" and "Neanderthal released into wild". Why didn't Slashdot wait until after the release before reporting on this?

Taking bets

[Anonymous Coward]

Any creationists want to step up to the plate and tell us what these results will show?

Re:Taking bets

[Anonym1ty]

The Neanderthals were called Giants.

It will be more important to find out for sure if Neanderthals could interbreed with "modern man". Many believe Neanderthals to be essentially the same as man, and the differences between Neanderthals and "modern man" may be accounted for by simple variation within the same kind.

Even if we could interbreed,... we may not have. Even to this day there are people who will not mix with other races. It may be some similar taboo has kept this group of humans separate from the rest of us.

It is important to note that though creationists may reject evolution, they have no problems with natural selection and variations within a species. They just don't go for the Ape beget a person or a cat beget a dog...

Creationists still have a major argument against evolution too. There is no evidence whatsoever that one species has ever evolved into another one. You can claim all you want that the types of species we have shows evolution but there is no direct evidence. A creationist can dispel any arguments about evolution based on similarity of species simply by similarities, they were all designed by the same creator.

Of coarse creationists can't prove that evolution is false. What creationists can show is that by interpreting the exact same evidence it is possible to draw a completely different -yet scientifically valid explanation of what is happening here.

Evolution is a very good working theory, but there are a lot of holes in it as it is now. You can not use variation or natural selection by themselves to prove evolution as a whole. All experiments to this day to cause mutations have failed to produce a single beneficial mutation.

I, myself am not saying creation or evolution are right. I am looking at this scientifically and both arguments require an aweful lot of faith.

Re:Taking bets

[Webs 101]

No. Neanderthal man gots its name because the first specimen was found in the Neanderthal (Neander Valley) in Germany.

White House shows interest

[Anonymous Coward]

President Bush expressed considerable interest in the Neanderthal Genome sequencing project. The president expressed hope the project would be completed quickly enough that a living person whose DNA most closely matched that of a Neanderthal could be identified and nominated to the Supreme Court.

Re:White House shows interest

[coflow]

why does a jab at a right-winger get modded up funny, but an equally clever jab at the left get's left alone?

Re:White House shows interest

[ericspinder]

why does a jab at a right-winger get modded up funny, but an equally clever jab at the left get's left alone?

That "equally funny jab was just the equilivant of a "your mama" come back, and really not particularly funny. However, IMHO, the OP was a little tired itself. Personally I've very *progressive*, and dislike Bush more than the average guy, but I'm a little tired of every article on Slashdot getting twisted to insult the American political system.

Re:flawed findings...

[winkydink]

hmm... i wonder if rohypnol works on neanderthals?

Re:Shouldn't be too hard

[Rei]

Back in their day, all they had were AMP and ADP; ATP hadn't been invented yet. In those times, glycolysis took two glucose for every one ADP produced, and they were proud of it! Back then, everything ate up that precious ADP - even the Calvin cycle. Oh, sure, it violated their ability to continue on as lifeforms indefinitely, but it was all they had to work with.

Back then, oxygen didn't end up making it into the bloodstream and then to the cells and mitochondria through diffusion from concentration differentials across membranes; they had to put it in manually. It got tiring after a while, all of the precision injection work, but it gave them exercise - a good muscle builder, it was. And, boy, did they need that muscle tone to hunt, what with only being able to synthesize two of their amino acids on their own.

We've come a long way, my friend. A long way.

ahhh

[ImaLamer]

There is a big difference between knowing how to do something and doing it well. Monkeys (APES!!!) can throw stuff, but they don't really hit their targets often. For apes, it is more of a bluffing technique - "look, I'm thowing this towards you".

There has been a lot of research into the theory that one reason we made it out of our ancient roots is because we threw so well. Not only could we throw rocks and later spears, but we could actually hit our targets. Of course we weren't always that great, and those who weren't died... you know the rest.

Basically, one author put it like this 'Is pitching an evolved skill?'

Re:ahhh

[maxpublic]

There has been a lot of research into the theory that one reason we made it out of our ancient roots is because we threw so well.

Homo sapiens satisfied 90% of their nutritional needs through gathering and ony 10% through hunting. Overall humans were incredibly shitty hunters.

Neanderthal numbers are switched: 90% of their food was meat, only 10% of it came in the form of fruit and vegetables. This was necessary, due to both their bulk (the weakest could break Arnie in his prime in two) and the environment they lived in. Neanderthals were very, very good hunters - the best the wide human line as ever produced, by a huge margin.

I sincerely doubt the Neanderthals were incapable of mastering the art of 'throwing', especially since it appears they might actually have been a bit smarter than us. And I've never once heard this argument until today, here, on Slashdot, despite a fair amount of research into Neanderthal and other human relatives.

In fact, the prevailing theory concerning Neanderthal extinction has to do with a) the reduction in suitable climate, b) the relative inability to concentrate numbers because they couldn't support themselves on plant matter like homo sapiens did, and c) the inability to drive off homo sapien encroachment for this very reason (e.g., valley X could only support Y members of Neanderthal tribe, but 5Y of H. Sapiens tribe, meaning that Neanderthals were badly outnumbered in conflicts with H. Sapiens. Strength hardly matters if you're outnumbered 5 to 1).

Max

Re:Yes! Imagine the possibilities....

[MustardMan]

Andre the giant suffered from a disease called acromegaly, which caused him to continually grow, such that the proportions of his body took a constant toll on it. Near his death he was in constant pain, and eventually died of heart failure because the muscle simply couldn't keep up with the size of his body. Most people who were diagnosed with the disease in his time didn't live to 40. Saying he was like a neanderthol just because he had a funny shaped head is incredibly stupid and closed minded. The man suffered from an illness which gave him a short, painful life. That he was able to capitolize on the outward appearance given to him by the disease to make his life into a positive one is a testament to Andre's spirit.

Resurrection?

[solarlux]

A previous slashdot article mentioned a group of scientists who were attempting to resurrect the extinct Tasmanian tiger by inserting recovered DNA into a surrogate mother's egg (of a similar existing species). The latest news is that the project was cancelled due to difficulties, but then was recently restarted.

So this brings up an interesting question... IF the entire Neanderthal genome was recovered, could its DNA be inserted into a human egg and brought to birth by a surrogate human mother? If this is feasible (with current or near-future tech), imagine the implications!

Re:Yes! Imagine the possibilities....

[dan dan the dna man]

Unfortunately genome sequencing projects don't really lend themselves to a BOINC like infrastructure - what you're doing is assembling millions of short strands of DNA into a contiguous sequence. Consequently you need all the avaialable strands close by to compare each other against and fit them into the scaffold. Thats why these things tend to be done on big localised compute clusters and not distributed.

Genome annotation (actually marking out features in the DNA) is a different matter - it would be quite sensible to farm out "chunks" of assembled DNA to multiple machines for various gene prediction algorithms.

If you're interested in doing genome based distributed computation I'm sure Genome@Home w ould be delighted to hear from you.

"Lost in a Good Book"

[ewhac]

The subject of reconstituted Neanderthals was briefly explored in Jasper Fforde's book, "Lost in a Good Book" (sequel to, "The Eyre Affair"). Both books take place on an alternate-history Earth where the Crimean War has lasted for hundreds of years, and genetic engineering is a consumer product (you can sequence and grow your own pet Dodo bird). Neanderthals were recreated for the purpose of being cheaply-made foot soldiers for the war effort. However, it turned out that Neanderthals are completely non-aggressive creatures; the whole concept of conflict is incomprehensible to them. So they ended up using them as cheap labor for low-end, low-skill jobs, such as fast-food restaurant server, or SkyRail driver.

'Thals don't figure prominently until the fourth book in the series, "Something Rotten," where they turn out to be instrumental in a high-stakes world cup croquet tournament.

All four books are a hell of a lot of fun, and approach the level of wit and humor of Douglas Adams. Recommended.

Schwab

junk's still a mystery

[Dioscorea]

The latter, it turns out, is not remotely "junk", but contains important regulatory sequences which control gene activation/deactivation and the physical structure of the chromosomes.

actually, known regulatory sequences comprise only a small fraction of the junk....

a much bigger fraction is mobile DNA of various kinds (transposons, satellites, etc.) which may (or may not) be evolutionarily important.....

some more may be unannotated genes, e.g. small ORFs or noncoding RNAs... basically the content of intergenic DNA is still an open question...

Re:junk's still a mystery

[ImaLamer]

Yeah, umm no.

Worms and some bacteria have DNA strands with 300 times the information of humans, most of it junk, and it doesn't mean anything. The junk is just left in there after reproduction. You've got to remember that although we've even gone to space, a place no worm could imagine going, we haven't reproduced as much as they have. Bacteria? Forget about it.

Really, get "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. Great read, updated by Ann, wealth of insight into evolution.

If Cloned...

[Ranger]

I predict if Neanderthals are cloned:

A) Geico will offer them car insurance, but they won't buy because of their Caveman commercials.

B) Neanderthals will be pissed to find out were replaced by people on the B Ark.

C) Sales of backrazors will double.

D) Grunthag and Duna will top Neanderthal baby names lists just above Rena, Gort, Bob, and Winona.

Re:Where DNA from?

[Otter]

Do you have a link to this info?

Here's the second case -- IIRC the first paper was in Cell, but I can't find it.

How do they know it's neanderthol and not from something else?

I'm no anthropologist but I think that Neanderthal skeletons are pretty unmistakeable to the trained eye.

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

[varmittang]

I thought gravity was a Law, not a theory.

Scientific Law: This is a statement of fact meant to explain, in concise terms, an action or set of actions. It is generally accepted to be true and univseral, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation. Scientific laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don't really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true.

Some scientific laws, or laws of nature, include the law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and Hook's law of elasticity.

Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology.

The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law governs a single action, whereas a theory explains a whole series of related phenomena.

Re:http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

[mapmaker]

I thought gravity was a Law, not a theory.

No, gravity is a theory. Anything in science that explains why something happens is a theory, or a hypothesis. Simple descriptions of what happens are sometimes called laws. Laws aren't 'truer' than theories, they're simpler.

Here's a relevant snippet from the wikipedia entry for theory:
Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data.

Found this site via Google Ads

[ImaLamer]

Slashdot.org, so easy to use even a cave man could do it

Re:Genetic material in fossils?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is there genetic material in fossils?

Recent events suggest the notion is not so far fetched - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/03 24_050324_trexsofttissue.html

This was covered on slashdot - http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/03/24/20122 56.shtml?tid=14

Wrist Structure

[richyoung]

I read somewhere (Sci. Am.?) about someone trying to teach primates flint-knapping and throwing skills. Turns out that they understand the usefulness of the blade fine and try to create them when they need one, but they're hampered by the skeletal structure of the wrist, which is much stouter because of the need to support body weight while walking. They can't get the little wrist flick that we can that ads so much to throwing. The best an ape can hope for is chucking a rock hard against another one, and looking for sharp edges in the resulting random fragments.

So our ability to walk upright gave us the ability to use projectile weapons (i.e., hunt things faster than we are) AND create edged tools/weapons AND spark fires. Not a bad deal, IMO.

Bits and pieces still there in Western Europeans?

[Easy2RememberNick]

No offence meant but I think people in France and the Northen Spain areas have some Neanderthal genes floating around in them.

Just purely going by looks, wern't Neanderthals supposed to have large noses, a stocky build? Their funerals appeared to be elaborate with lots of flowers used, cave paintings, just a generally arsty kind of being.

Basque peoples are supposed to be very different genetically from most other Europeans. Maybe there was some influence there. Basque peoples, if I rememeber my history, used to be known as peaceful and tended to collaborate rather than fight an enemy (e.g. Roman Empire, also the reason for the Basque language not being a Romance language?).

Just a theory! Take it with a grain of salt.

Re:Genetic material in fossils?

[Anonym1ty]

Since when is there genetic material in fossils? Fossils are mineral deposits, not bone.

Not all Neanderthal remains are fossils. In fact even non-fossilized remains of other hominids are found. Also, as reported on slashdot some time back, dinosaur soft-tissue remains have been found. -Brain tissue to be precise.

Most things that die do not become fossils. Many remains in oxygen deprived wet (bogs) can survive for 1000s of years. Critters can also be preserved in tar for some time or even mummified.

Thinking, not throwing

[TFGeditor]

The reason Man became the apex predator was because of the ability to think, reason, and plan. e.g. Homo sapiens figured out how to drive entire herds of herbivores over cliffs, eliminating the need for throwing or jabbing.

Re:Thinking, not throwing

[theguyfromsaturn]

Neanderthal could and did do this. Didn't save them.

Historically, HS wipes out almost all competition

[mveloso]

In general, Homo Sapiens pretty much will wipe out anything that looks like a competitor/threat, including other Homo Sapiens.

This has extended itself to the modern times, though it's been toned down somewhat by the various mores and moralities.

Things wouldn't be any different for our ancestor Homo Sapiens. I'd guess that they'd be even more aggressive towards Neanderthals, due to the larger size and bigger heads (and brains) of the Neanderthals.

If they weren't so big, they probably would've been domesticated or enslaved.

Re:In all likelihood, they already have results

[John Hawks]

Ancient DNA is generally fragmented into pieces only a few hundred nucleotides long (in comparison to a total genome length of 3 billion). To reconstruct longer sequences, a complete series of damaged fragments is needed, with enough overlap to connect them together. So in my opinion, even fairly short segments of around 100kb are far more effort than anyone is likely to put into it.

On the other hand, this reconstruction of the genome from short fragments is exactly the "shotgun" approach that Craig Venter successfully used in the Human Genome Project. With enough computerization, who knows?

--John (John Hawks Anthropology Weblog)

Re:slave labor, duh

[jericho4.0]

There are enough homo sapiens that don't have the intellectual qualifications to do much of our work. And that bar is getting higher, with the information economy and such. How many labours do we need?

Given that the average Neanderthal had a larger brain than your average H. Sapian, maybe they could help us out. The human linked extinction might not have been because the humans were smarter, but because the of the Ns much greater caloric needs.

Michael Chrichton's new book...

[Singen]

In an experiment gone horribly wrong, Scientists bring back animals, Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens and set them in the iron age...

It's going to be called, Ironic Park.