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Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome
goran72 writes "In a development which could reveal the links between modern humans and their prehistoric cousins, scientists said they have mapped a first draft of the Neanderthal genome. Researchers used DNA fragments extracted from three Croatian fossils to map out more than 60 percent of the entire Neanderthal genome by sequencing three billion bases of DNA."
The interesting thing is that Neanderthals has the same version of FOXP2 as modern humans. This makes it more likely that they had proper speech rather than just "grunting" sounds.
This would be a perfect test for cloning, as it would be incredibly interesting to clone these creatures and study them. We could discover their intelligence, learning capability, physical appearance, and other things that can only be guessed at through the fossil record. In the name of science, it behooves us to do such cloning (along with cloning of wooly mammoths and dingos).
The problem would be that, like monkeys, Neanderthals are primates and would probably be the focus of animal rights groups seeking ways to stall the progress of science. Should appearance endow rights? Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.
Hey, maybe the zoo can take care of my student loans if I have enough neanderthal markers in my personal genome.
http://www.aaronrogier.net
Doesn't the significance depend hugely on what genes were included in the 60% that have been mapped? We're supposed to share 50% of our DNA with fruit, 60% with fruit flies and 98% with chimps, so this incomplete map might tell us absolutely nothing, except that Neanderthal man is closely related to bananas and chimps, and that they were actually overgrown fruit flies.
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You should not be in the zoo. No, you should not be in the zoo. With all the things that you can do, the circus is the place for you.
Wonder where the stories about trolls come from?
Here?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
On a serious note, there are a few scientific issues at stake here.
First let me explain this "positive selection" stuff from the article. When a mutation within a coding region of a gene takes place, it can either be a silent mutation (no change in the resulting proteins) due to the redundancy of the genetic code, or it can change the amino acid sequence of the protein and thereby possibly its function.
Now, mutations happen at random. But depending on what kind of an effect the changes have, they might be wiped out by natural selection. For example, mutations in the "core system", the "kernel" of any living cell -- replication machinery usually are wiped out, because the machinery is so finely tuned that most mutations seriously screw it up. If the changes are largely neutral, the ratio of the mutations that have an effect divided by mutations that are silent (so called dN/dS ratio) is roughly equal to what we would expect based on random model, and we speak of neutral evolution.
On the other hand, environmental pressure, change of times, parasite pressure or many other things can lead to an accelerated rate of evolution -- measured by the fraction nonsynonymous mutations / silent mutations. Thus, one can detect whether a species, gene or genome was subjected to a specific pressure. And if we look at the whole genome, we can tell a lot about what this pressure was. And of course, it works both ways -- we can tell a lot about what the pressure was that shaped us, humans.
* of course, learn more about neanderthals -- who were they, did they mix with humans (current analyses say no, but who knows what one can find in the whole genome). Were they human at all? Did they really talk? What kind of culture did they have?
* by learning about divergence between neanderthals and homo sapiens, answer the fundamental questions of biology -- who are we? what makes us different from animals? What made us spread and neanderthals disappear?
* analysis of genome instead of single genes takes the whole thing up one level.
* tracing back evolution (in general, it is not only about human evolution) -- not by comparing sequences of organisms that live nowadays, but really going back in time. Among others, this will let us test the tools that we routinely use for phylogenetic analysis (that is, tracing back the evolution).
Regards,
j. (who currently works on genome evolution in bacteria)
Nice, when will it be available for TomTom?
I wonder what IDers claim neanderthals are supposed to be. Beta versions?
I kinda doubt it. Neanderthals went extinct so long ago, that I doubt that any stories or myths from that age would have survived as long.
We're talking long before humanity invented writing, so the only way it could have survived is if the shaman of a tribe taught his apprentice about it, and so on. For some tens of thousands of years straight. I'd think that's rather unlikely. They had more pressing concerns in the here and now than "those guys our ancestors lived in the same cave with."
Basically, how many folk stories do we have about woolly mammoths? Why would Neanderthals be remembered more?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The serious answer is that they believe that the bone fragments are either human in origin or mocked up from bones of existing apes.
There is no Neanderthal species for ID proponents. The answer is either they are human or they never really existed and the evolutionists are involved in a vast conspiracy to validate their own beliefs by creating these "pre-human" humanoids.
That said, assuming you don't bite somebody or have some kind of crazy infectious disease, you'd probably be better off not being classified as human. Sure, you could be considered property like a slave, but you wouldn't have to pay taxes or be responsible for a whole variety of crimes. Heck, PETA would probably make sure you had more rights than humans.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
It's not just about appearances. The Neanderthals:
- used tools to make other tools. Apes do make improvised tools like sharpening sticks, but only Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens would build a stone axe to use to build a stone spear, and then keep both.
- skinned animals and tanned the skins
- built elaborate shelters out of wood and skins
- used clothes (e.g., made from those skins)
- built (crude) musical instruments. And not just as in "something that makes noise", but as in, for example, a flute which can play more than one note. So they probably had music too.
- had a bit of work specialization, which would also mean a bit more complex a social structure, and possibly even some kind of commerce (at least as in, "I'll make you a strong spear if you give me a leg of antelope.")
- decorated themselves with primitive jewellery and paints (basically early cosmetics)
- had ritual burial, which would indicate some concept of afterlife or at least remorse. (You don't bother burying someone in the same position, and with his weapon, and stuff, unless you expect it to matter somehow.)
Etc.
And according to this research, they probably were as capable of speech as the humans, because they have the same gene.
Oh, and another bit of trivia: they actually had a higher average brain size than Homo Sapiens. And in a smaller body, too. So if we go by the popular brain-mass/body-mass metric, they should actually be a little smarter on the average.
So we're not talking just as in "looks like a human", but something that was definitely just as sentient and self-aware as a human. It could probably not just understand that you're experimenting on it, but understand the experiment if you bother explaining the science behind it.
And if you think that it still makes it ok, because it's still a different species... well, then I'd say your empathy is too broken to be the same as 99% of the humans. You're different. When can we start experimenting on _you_ then?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man."
Thing is.
Hasn't the author noticed that "co-existing alongside modern man" is not good for one's health?
Perhaps the sentence should have read:
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, although the probable reason is that they co-existed alongside modern man, which is a species known to be (a) warlike, (b) greedy, (c) bloodthirsty, and (d) in general dangerous to the health of other species, most of which it has eliminated from the face of the earth.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
No, you'd better hope that there is a difference between the human genome and the Neanderthal genome.
According to what was said on NPR this morning, there is less than a 1% difference between the human genome and the neanderthal genome.
The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species. This doesn't even take into consideration the 2-3% difference between humans and chimpanzees.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Can't they just get a DNA sample from the nearest redneck?
By definition, two species are distinct if they cannot breed and produce fertile offspring. The whole point of this research is to determine whether this is true or not. So this:
The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species.
misses the point entirely. You and I have different dna. Does the fact that there is a difference at all make us separate species? I very much doubt it.
The whole question being researched is precisely this: how much difference was there between neanderthals and modern humans, and was it enough of a difference that they could not have interbred. It is the inability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, not the presence of any difference at all, that determines separate species status.
Actually during the time neanderthals lived alongside the real human ancestors, they were the smarter species of the two
Not so. During the time when both Modern Humans and Neanderthals coexisted, Modern Humans, by and large, showed evidence of the more sophisticated material culture (tools, art,etc.). Maybe you're thinking of the fact that, on average, Neanderthals had larger brains? Larger brain size does not = more intelligent. It's quite likely that Neanderthals had larger brains for the same reason that they had short, thick limbs: an evolved adaptation to the extreme cold of glacial eurasia. Neanderthal body proportions were most likely an example of Allen's Rule.
how much difference was there between neanderthals and modern humans, and was it enough of a difference that they could not have interbred.
According to the researcher they had on NPR this morning, that question has not been answered. Here is the NPR link. The third paragraph talks about the divergence between humans and neanderthals. The next to last paragraph mentions the question of interbreeding. You of course can listen to the entire broadcast by following the link at the top of the article.
You and I have different dna.
That is true as individuals, but as we are both humans, we have the same overall genome and so could breed (assuming male-female of course). With neanderthals having a slightly different genome than humans, there could be enough of a difference to not have allowed that to happen, especially since we and they diverged to two different branches just as we and the great apes diverged even earlier. Obviously, those in the know will have to make that determination.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Plus, "species" is sort of a fuzzy and debated term with lots of funny edge cases - much to the consternation of people who need to label everything :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This would require reproductive isolation, and no population of modern humans has been completely isolated for more than about 10,000 years (the big example are the Tasmanian Aborigines, who were cut off from Australia by the Bass Strait at the end of the last Ice Age). As long as there is some transfer of genes, various populations will remain interfertile. We will continue to evolve, but the genetic differences will never become so substantial as to create a reproductively isolated group of humans.
This is precisely what has happened with C. lupus. Despite the careful breeding of several thousand years of domestic dogs, there has been enough interbreeding between wolves and other wild dogs and domestic dogs to assure that, for all the morphological changes, they remain the same species.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I would imagine, all in all, that human and Neandertal brains were the same density. Let's remember, here, that the arrival of modern-looking humans (that is, humans that are morphologically the same as us) predates by tens of thousands of years the arrival of humans that behaved in a modern fashion. Prior to that, modern-looking humans didn't behave all that differently from their forebearers; the toolkits remained static for thousands of years, little evidence of symbolic thinking; behaviors key to how we classify modern humans. In fact, we didn't really behave all that differently from Neandertals, despite being morphologically distinct.
Somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago there was some sort of neurological watershed moment where we suddenly modern-behaving humans; the rise of art, of symbolism, of ritual, rapid cultural advancement, technological breakthroughs at ever-increasing speeds. With prior hominids, tool kits could stay static for hundreds of thousands of years, but the rise of modern humans, we see the rise of agriculture within about 40,000 years of the rise of the first fully modern (physiologically and behaviorally) humans.
As is often pointed out, the issue isn't necessarily brain size, but rather the wiring. The difference between pre-modern and modern humans, even where, morphologically, there's little different, is probably some very subtle neurological changes. Sadly, those are the kinds of changes that don't get fossilized, and there may not be an obvious genetic component, perhaps a slight mutation in some regulatory function, we just don't know. That may be the one value of mapping the genomes of extinct hominids where we can.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You have more sophisticated material culture than any generation before you. Does this mean that you are smarter than all of your ancestors? Of course not. It simply means that you've inherited the intellectual output of who knows how many human generations. So, for all we know, the average Neanderthal could be smarter than the average modern-day human, just less likely to copy ideas from around it.
In any case, we seem to be unable to measure the intelligence of currently living humans in any but the most arbitrary way, or even come up with a workable definition for what intelligence actually is, so I kinda doubt we can say anything about that of humanlike beings long dead.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.