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Deciphering the DNA Code of Neanderthal Man
smooth wombat writes "U.S. and German scientists have embarked on a two-year long project to map the genetic code of Neanderthal man. Their hope is to gain a greater understanding of how modern human brains evolved. This study comes after last years completion of mapping the DNA of chimpanzees, our closest living relative." From the article: "Over two years, the scientists aim to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion building blocks of the Neanderthal genome -- working with fossil samples from several individuals. They face the complication of working with 40,000-year-old samples, and of filtering out microbial DNA that contaminated them after death. Only about 5 percent of the DNA in the samples is actually Neanderthal DNA, Egholm estimated, but he and Rothberg said pilot experiments had convinced them that the decoding was feasible."
...the evolution of DNA in Homo Sapiens gave them a larger and more complex brain, as well as a larger larynx in order for them to speak deeply, clearly and forcefully.
Neanderthal man, on the contrary, sounded wimpy and nasal.
Neanderthals were hated by other humanoids, and were killed off due to their annoying, high-pitched voices.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal
A recent study conducted on the Neanderthal hyoid found that due to the physical characteristics of Neanderthals and the fact that their larynx would have been stouter than that of the modern human, the average note emitted by Neanderthals would have been high pitched and sharper than that of modern man, contrary to the media stereotype of Neanderthals having ape-like grunts.
The base of the Neanderthal tongue was positioned higher in the throat, crowding the mouth somewhat. As a result, Neanderthal speech would most likely have been nasalized.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The female neanderthal's pelvis was extremely wide, which has led to speculation that their babies had a longer gestation period than humans (maybe 12 months), and were born bigger and less helpless. Even assuming the human host mother was going to deliver by C-section, I'm not sure you could delay birth that long.
But it's wild to imagine the problems it would cause for society. If you could produce beings from anywhere along the spectrum from animal to human, at what point do you let it vote? At what point do the religious leaders decide it has a soul?
In the essay, Dawkins briefly discusses the moral implications of such a task. He concludes that any objections are easily overcome by the great service to mankind in proving the correctness of the Theory of Evolution.
Huh? It's already been proved, to anyone who's willing to accept scientific evidence. More scientific evidence isn't going to convince the rest of the population.
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