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Neanderthal Sex Boosted Immunity In Modern Humans
NotSanguine writes "Sexual relations between ancient humans and their evolutionary cousins were critical for our modern immune systems, researchers report (paper itself is subscription only) in the journal Science. Mating with Neanderthals and another ancient group called Denisovans introduced genes that help us cope with viruses to this day, they conclude."
I'm sure this knowledge was a big influence on who Mrs. Ballmer chose as a mate.
Trolling is a art,
Want a better immune system for your kiddies?
Call me.
we are on internet, aren't we?
those DNA strands are awesome!
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
1) Very good Saturday night entertainment. Not sure what I'd do without "Stupidest Criminals 3"...
2) Very good opportunities to take home a hot chick at the bar. Let all the idiots use the nauseating "Hey Babe, lets better our future children's immune systems.." pickup line and better your opportunities to take home that hot chick at the bar
In high school and college, the women who slept with all the guys who _looked_ like Neanderthals were the ones most likely to have disease. I always thought they were slutty, but apparently it was some sort of inborn behaviour to improve our resistance as a race.
There's one way to bring competition back: allow polygamy.
Let the best, brightest, fittest mate with as many as possible and have their spouses/kids be under the same legal protection monogamous marriages are right now.
With most mammals, it's what nature does anyway.
It's something that we're totaly screwing up right now, by trying to treat all possible diseases and letting all crap DNA survive, weakening our chanses of survival
...
Devolution if you will...
Adolf, is that you?
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
Way back when, the aliens landed. they needed a work force, but the locals (neanderthals) were too stupid, and the alien's genetically made workforce, kept dying to diseases.
So they spliced/mated their work force with the neanderthals to make, well, us.
hmm, i wonder if i get a really bad hair do, i can get on an episode of Ancient Aliens...
Be seeing you...
ummm.... the point of Evolution is to strengthen a genome against the environment.... It is completely relative. There is no objective better in Evolution, given that, modern norms and medicine are not hurting us given the environment we live in... in fact, they strengthen us.
shoot... our closest relative.. the Bonobo, is hedonistic.
You do realise that being the fittest (read: more succesful) in our current society, means being a total asshole with shitloads of money to pay for every single need?
There have been some tests that show that the happiest (non-suicidal people) are the people who arent stupid (120).
So that leaves us with a 110 IQ, rich asshole to mate with everyone.
That doesn't sound so nice to me.
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...that I should have sex with my neighbors?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
And thank you Slashcode for leaving out some of my post:
Not stupid (above 100 IQ), but also not too brilliant to figure out everything sucks (above 120 IQ), resulting in 110 IQ.
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Apparently, one of the major upsides of sex(from a darwinian, rather than purely recreational, perspective) of the not-intuitively-all-that-sensible arrangement of having to seek out a conspecific, risk sexually transmitted infection, and mate simply in order to reproduce, is the rapid genetic diversification you can achieve by recombining genomes with others. Your asexual organisms have it much easier; but they have to depend on mutation(or, as with some bacteria, quasi-sex genetic exchange mechanisms).
The neat organisms, in my opinion, are the edge cases that can go either way. this piece(sorry about the paywall...) examines snails that can either reproduce sexually or spawn clones asexually. As it turns out, in areas with higher parasite loads, the snails resort to sex at much higher rates in order to keep abreast of the parasite threat, while the less pressured snails go for the rapid and low-risk strategy of asexual cloning.
Did they mention anything about donkeys?
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Marriage and procreation are two different things. Watch an episode of Jenny Jones, Montel Williams or Jerry Springer for details.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
some months ago there was a study proposing that black people do not have Neanderthal ancestry. do they have a different immune system?
Evolution has no point! It is a response to immediate environment, not a "step forward" on some "upward path." Someone would have had to lay out that upward path. What traits survive best in in one environment may be exactly what will do much more poorly in the next succeeding environment. That is what makes devolution is a meaningless term. There is no unwinding of the clock.
Unless, of course, you think there is one or more gods who nudge "life as we know it" onward and upward to some "higher plane."
Okay. So having sex with ugly girls will cure my colds and I'll live longer? Maybe the big cave in the sky is better.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
I can has your sweet sweet genes?
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Your entire comment reeks of idiocy. You begin your tirade by implying that DNA is invalid because it happens to have been extracted from a tooth belonging to a subspecies to which we have assigned a name you feel is funny. You then begin a series of rhetorical questions that, in the order you ask them, express disdain for the government, a misunderstanding of what constitutes proof, lay out a false analogy between "rampant wild sex" within a population and interbreeding of moderately divergent populations in nature, and an implication that, because you lack the background and/or intelligence to understand how researchers arrived at their conclusions, the scientific community operates on authority instead of on evidence. Typically when I see that argument it's a form of projection, usually from a religious background. You finish your useless rant by completely ignoring that various avenues of research are being carried on concurrently, that evolutionary insights are absolutely central to HIV and AIDS research, and then throwing in an appeal to pity not really aimed at anyone in particular. The final syllable of your comment is "ha", by which you mean to imply that anyone who takes you seriously would consider your point established. Go back to conservapedia, creationist.
plague, aids, flu, tuberculosis, pneumonia and any other deadly disease
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I've often wondered about some families I've known with continual health problems.
I have considered that maybe they did not inherit sufficient "protection" or DNA to give them resistance to certain viruses, fungi and bacteria or maybe more properly the ability to generate such resistance.
Given the article's credit to interbreeding amongst early groups and the variations in today's populations of ancient DNA traces, I am wondering more about my hypothesis.
We humans are very diverse indeed; it is more than skin deep.
eh??... watch http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ ...
Must be why white girls give it for nig-nogs.
Definitely worth reading the article before trolling... it actually states the complete opposite:-
"At least one variety of HLA gene occurs frequently in present day populations from West Asia, but is rare in Africans.
.
The researchers say that is because after ancient humans left Africa some 65,000 years ago, they started breeding with their more primitive relations in Europe, while those who stayed in Africa did not
"The HLA genes that the Neanderthals and Denisovans had, had been adapted to life in Europe and Asia for several hundred thousand years, whereas the recent migrants from Africa wouldn't have had these genes," said study leader Peter Parham."
Also
there is a 8-inch uncut nigger cock pumping their precious little angle's pussy
Maybe their little "angle" was just doing it to be obtuse. She can get away with it if she is acute girl after all...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Is it just me, or does /. has a real obsession getting to the bottom of Neanderthal Sex research? I search "Neanderthal sex" in the /. search and come up with 11 stories since 2005 (listed below). But when I search for conventional term "heterosexual marriage", all I find is a single story on "world of warcraft"... go figure.
Neanderthal Sex Boosted Immunity In Modern Humans 56
Neanderthal Genes Found In All Non-African Populations 406
New Ancient Human Identified 148
Neanderthals "Had Sex" With Modern Man 536
Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans? 502
New Evidence Debunks "Stupid" Neanderthal 505
Neanderthals and Humans Diverged 660K Years Ago 128
Did Humans Get Their Big Brains From Neanderthals? 579
Deciphering the DNA Code of Neanderthal Man 188
Modern Humans, Neanderthals Shared Earth for 1,000 Years 765
Hominids: The Neanderthal Parallax 132
Gently reply
those Africans without Neanderthal genes do not seem to have any weaknesses in their immune systems in dealing with viruses compared to others. True there are some illnesses that Africans suffer more than others, but there are also other illnesses that Europeans and Asians also suffer from more as well, so it seems to balance out.
"seems", unqualified, is a very non-scientific statement though. It sounds like an interesting hypothesis to test.
it's in my head
Ah, the Republican credo: Tell no SMALL lies. Hitler and his "intelligentsia" were conservatives. You're entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.
You probably think Quest for Fire is a documentary, too.
Now would that be a society based upon psychopathic greed or intellectual prowess or humanitarianism or athletic ability or to stupid to plan ahead and use contraceptives.
Just want to clarify the basis of selection and not even look to touch on the issue of which is better for human society a matriarchy or a patriarchy. Just that at the moment it is fairly clear that majority polygamy based societies seem to be pretty unstable, treat the plural members of that relationship more like chattel, child abuse seems to be a national pass time and fairly backward.
Perhaps someone needs to explain the fundamental difference between humans 'a social species' and say lizards. It is not competition within human society, it is competition of the species who by collective and social effort establish species competitiveness. In fact it is very likely that to promote psychotic, lizard like, competition within the human species would break down human society and thus leave humanity vulnerable to direct physical competition with the rest of the biosphere (a guaranteed physical loser).
In human society it is basically insane to think of the rest of human society as the competitor and as something to be preyed upon, exploited and competed with. This is regardless of the last thirty years mass media messages that psychopathy and narcissism are desirable states of a mass consumption humanity (selfishness and forcing ones ego upon others).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
. . . and then divorced you after having the kids.
Evolution is logic; that which dies, dies. That which survives can replicate.
Today, we let everyone replicate. If we could, we would let seemingly uncontrollable child cancer genomes replicate if we had the cure for it.
Imagine that there is some kind of natural disaster and everyone had child cancer?! "Oops, sorry sir but the power to the child cancer pill factory is torn appart due to some flood".
Yeah...
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You're so stupid that you asociate Jews with a type of DNA?
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Ah, the Republican credo: Tell no SMALL lies.
No, that's the left. Hence your attempt to claim that Hitler was right-wing, and deny that the 'progressives' were firm believers in eugenics and the murder of 'undesirables' before Hitler's attempt to put that into practice made them embarrassed to talk about such things in public.
They still, of course, believe it in private; just look at the 'Greens' wank fantasies about eliminating billions of people so they can live 'naturally'.
The largest society that non-neanderthal DNA has produced without major intervention from neanderthal infused cultures didn't even reach Aztec complexity even though population densities have been large enough quite often. It is quite probable there is a genetic component that influences social interaction.
"Sexual relations between ancient humans and their evolutionary cousins were critical for our modern immune systems"
It also lead to the creation of soccer hooligans and red necks.
Look at the bright side, please: the soccer hooligans and red necks have better chances to survive viral infections. ;)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I would actually like to consider this too. When you examine our genetic history, and trace back to common eve/adam, you realize that at some point in a 10-40000 year cycle, the human race moves toward incest and then back toward cross-breeding. Hence the egyptains.
Are you so stupid you believe there are "types" of DNA?
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
Women that preferred oral sex over genital sex were at a disadvantage in the gene pool. It doesn't matter what porn movies portray. Get real dudes. Ever wonder why it's really so hard to get her to do it? Its in the genes. :-)
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Are you so stupid you believe there are "types" of DNA?
You should have read my sig, but because you're appearantly too stupid, I'll make an exception for you, below:
From the fscking dictionary:
type
a number of things or persons sharing a particular characteristic, or set of characteristics, that causes them to be regarded as a group, more or less precisely defined or designated; class; category: a criminal of the most vicious type.
Now, you may not know it, but DNA can carry various sequences of characteristics we call genes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene
So yes, I actually believe is have the type of DNA that made me a type (race in biology) of homo sapien.
To further proof that this term is actually used without dictionary-whoring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling
It appears that almost everyone has a different DNA type. Sorted by various gene, this can be grouped based on lenght, skin pigment, lenght, type of hair and shape of eye sockets and lip size. Total shocker, isn't it? I know...
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inter-racial relationships are almost always a white woman and a black man.
No.
Look about halfway down the page at a graph showing gender choices in interracial marriages. A smaller fraction of black women intermarry than black men, but the ratio is 22.0 % to 8.9 %. Not "almost always". Additionally, the fraction of mate selection (white, histpanic, asian, other) among those who do intermarry is nearly identical between the genders.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1616/american-marriage-interracial-interethnic?src=prc-latest&proj=peoplepress
I should know better.. Don't feed trolls, especially cowards... But this whole race thing needs to be stomped where ever and whenever it appears.
We as technological humans are past the state of natural biological evolution so you don't have to worry about "crap DNA" polluting the human gene pool. Human technological evolution is now faster than human natural biological evolution by orders of magnitude and will determine the future path of humanity. Many people with genetic problems which would have doomed them for most of human history are great contributors to human society now.
Ha! I remember a quote from Dune, where Frank Herbert states that the biggest competitor in any environment is a member of your own species. Think about it -- you're after the same resources, you've the same basic needs, and often, your survival could be at the expense of another.
Sure, it's easy not to think about that in a society that's rich and abundant with resources. But in a resource-strapped society? All bets are out the window. If you look at human history, you'll see that conflicts have happened at least as often as cooperation. Why do you think our history is plagued with warfare?
And even today, look at the less developed regions of the world. Do you think the people are fighting over pieces of land with oil and diamonds for no apparent reason?
The whole concept of the human society being one big and happy family is great to think about when the wants are few and the needs available plenty. Wait and watch once things start getting scarce (and it will happen, with our population), and it will be a whole different story. And it is far from a modern concept -- while social darwinism as it is espoused by popular media and our corporations may be absolute rubbish, the idea that human societies are all somehow benign entities is sheer nonsense. The only reason we cooperate is because it's in our favor. If not, all bets are out the window.
How the fuck is this pack of outright LIES "informative"? Hitler was a left-wing progressive? Greens want to kill billions so they can live naturally? Make some more shit up dude.
No, Hitler and his cronies were stupid for that. Others will make other stupid and conveniently self-serving decisions about what constitutes inferior DNA. That's why it's best not to engage in eugenics programs.
Which society are you speaking of?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Correlation is not causation. People need geological advantages. The places that weren't good enough to build proper societies were the places where the black people lived.
Energy seems to spark propper societies. For example the Egyption society erupted from flowing water and fish. But what do you do when you live somewhere in the middle of Africa? You spend the entire day walking for food. You're too bored so what do you do? You spend the remaining day fucking. Fucking means spreading HIV. So then you lost all hope.
But then what? Some people from all over the world start claiming you land, but if you're lucky enough you get to be transported as a slave to America and still don't get enough respect to be hired. So you have no money, no education.
But sure it must be a black gene or something....
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I surely don't hope the fear for this kinda stuff wears of like all new unknows stuff wears of. Before you know it you have to have ideal kids that are all almost genetically the same. Then you get the same weaknesses.
You strip difference out of the equation and your human defense goes down still.
But using this genetic stuff to entirely strip away disease is good. You just have to make sure you can replace the rock-solid system with your inteligence. It could be a bumpy ride and a silent killer if you try to make everything perfect...
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We could state that it's for stripping away diseases. If done correctly, like with medicine testing and aproval regulations, but for gene removal/altering, it could be done. But with great power comes great responsability; you have to do it right or you will suffer the consiquences.
But then again we also feared for all out nuclear war and it never happened, even though we have enough nukes and countries to blow the moon to shreds...
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...for this very reason, and that's been known for some time.
I see that no matter how obvious you are still blind, those places where "people are fighting over pieces of land with oil and diamonds", how competitive are those societies. Can they compete against societies where people work together democratically. You still fail to grasp the basic understanding that human societies that work together are more competitive than those that tear themselves apart, the kind of thinking you would expect from a psychopath or a narcissist, they honestly are incapable of viewing themselves as part of humanity, a genetic defect and of course the greater the percentage with the defect the more self destructive the human society it produces.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It's hard to tell if it's genetic just by looking at one family. A steady diet of fast food may be more influential than the genes one has, for instance.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Ah! Semantic fetishists are always fun. I can play too!
Basically, you're making the point that anything that can be described in terms of characteristics, can be typified. Not a total shocker when I put it in these terms, is it?
Following that perfectly valid train of thought, I'm pretty much sure that a certain ethnic group (lets call this group "the jews"), can be associated with a "type of DNA". For instance, nobody would say that black people don't share some genetic trait. An ethnic group, such as the Jews, is likely to interbreed. Sharing the religion is a very strong factor when selecting mates in some circles; in particular among orthodox Jews, for instance. Interbreeding is famously know for reinforcing genetic traits (and for its broad use in low-budget porn, but I digress...). Thus, even when I never even remotely said so, using your own definition of "types of DNA", we could very much say that Jews can be associated with certain "types of DNA".
You see what I did there, didn't you?
But perhaps you didn't mean that, right? Perhaps you meant that religious beliefs do not come from endogenous characteristics. I agree, and never said otherwise. Then again, you weren't trying to correct me, or make an argument; you were trying to be an smart-ass, insulting me and making a fuss after I made a joke. Well, congratulations, Mister Troll: I took your bait. Now you can go on jerking off to your image in the mirror. Feel free to call me stupid all your little ego desires.
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
So as long as we restrict things to, for example, the feeble minded it'll all be OK?
We have already managed to prove several times that eugenics programs will tend to suffer "mission creep" with terrible ethical consequences.
...there are some problems that really can be solved by a good boning.
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
Having sex does not change genes. Interbreeding does.
Considering time when it was happening I would suspect that rape scenario is more likely.
This is the first time that I will say on Slashdot: I wish I had modpoints. Mentioning that a human is *not* just a zoological but also a social species, and the warning about rampant danger of psychopathy in recent years make it the best post, IMHO.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
soooo the stereotype of neanderthals as hyper violent aggressors doesnt really fit the data?
wouldnt that stereotype be more applicable to, i dont know, us?
a lot of those diseases you mention existed because Eurasians had domesticated cattle and pigs and so forth and so on - which directly led to zoonotic diseases. the Americas did not have cattle nor did they have pigs.
touche monsieur!!!!
i agree. slashdot has a clear bias against christian conservatives. it goes further than the 'ban on jesus' though. there is also the fact that it tends to discuss stories on Linux to the exclusion of products made by Christian corporations like Microsoft. We all know that Jesus believed in Capitalism - and obviously slashdot is some kind of Marxist plot to destroy both.
Pedantic much? I said essentially the same damn thing, except I was talking in the end results of a pointless process.
There's one way to bring competition back: allow polygamy.
Especially in the absence of polyandry there will be considerable competition anyway in parts of China and India, thanks to their sex ratios.
Polygamy has some serious problems when it comes to human welfare. It tends to lead to a lot of violence and criminality - and, of course, to huge sacrifices of male welfare in order to be the wealthiest or most successful mate. Given that human welfare is the goal it doesn't seem very appealing.
You're missing my point. I am not discounting that cooperation is infinitely preferable to conflict. However, to ignore the fact that a fellow human being (or a society) is a competitor to the same resource is ingenuous at best.
One can cooperate while being fully cognizant of the fact that when it comes to resource scarcity, there could be a conflict for a limited resource.
Imagine that there was some kind of natural disaster like a disease that killed everyone that didn't have the genes for child cancer?
That's what has happened with other diseases.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Now if (as the Christians hope) so nasty event happens to the world, and all our science and technologies disappear,
Stop confusing American Fundamentalism with Christianity. They are alike in in the same way that Christianity and Judaism are alike in that they share a common heritage. The vast majority of Christians are sane and do not want the world to end, and see no conflict between science and their religion.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
This makes some sense. Homo Sapiens may have evolved through particularly rapid evolution. If viruses (virii -- what a word) play a role in genetic mutation, which I think is now a commonly held theory, Homo Sapiens might have 'stabilized' by boosting their immunity with some Neanderthal genes.
It's easy to imagine that slower-evolving species would have better immunity, if the virus theory is right.
Subsequent natural forces would probably discriminate against the offspring which were stupid, giving the best of both worlds -- smart and comparatively immune.
I'm not trained in biology -- just remembering other 'stuff that matters'. (early Homo Sapiens were sickly and smart? And then came to rule the world? I'd say that's News for Nerds.)
Explain the competitive outcome of a suicide bomber, not the bomber but the victims. Explain the competitive outcome of a lethal home invasion. Explain the competitive outcome of a pandemic the kills across all social strata and individual capability. How about a lethal mugging, a plane flying into a building, a large bomb placed in a multi story structure, a bridge collapse, a toxic polluted environment, an industrial disaster, all of these take victims at random and are the true signs of a collapsing society.
The reality is, in a collapsing society, those that cooperate and work together the most, survive in the greatest numbers, working together to eliminate or exiling those lizard eat lizard types (the individuals who work best together eliminate those who only care about themselves regardless of how strong or smart they are).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Are you being dense on purpose? Suicide bombers are the exception, not the norm. Even so, they are desperate attempts to undermine the opposition at whatever cost, even the ultimate personal harm to self.
Your arguments are wonderful in a society of abundance, but fail miserable when resource scarcity can be a reality. That is basic economics.
Fascism = Right Wing. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
And people always said I should stop dating my cousin!!
You absolutely fail to grasp the idea that co=operation is an ability that evolves based upon autonomic empathic response. People do not co-operate because it is a good idea, real humans co-operate based upon genetics, from primitive to modern societies, that atomic empathic response drives co-operation. The sharing of mutual goals to achieve shared emotional results. I am not surprised you don't get it at all, it's genetic, you might see it written on paper or a computer screen but you can never understand it. The modern terrorist suicide bomber is unique, whoops oh wait, the kamikaze, Hashishin and even spartans are all the same fight to death and killing any who get in their way http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bombers.
You of course are incredibly narrow minded, limit your reading and never look beyond your limited range of mass media fed assumptions.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
A true Christian company does not approve of homogenic workage
We should not alter DNA after birth, but if you're married to someone and both your RNA will highly likely result in realy problematic DNA for your child, you could opt for lab altering if you realy want a child together, instead of adoption.
This must be tight to some realy, realy strict regulation under which no mission creep could possibly happen to an organisation. One of the items in the regulation must be growing a test-DNA sample in a lab (sounds crazy) to the point where it can be determined wether the DNA will result in a healthy child. Then proceed with real pregnancy. There should also be a realy strictly specification for problematic deceases, like only inheritable decauses and later on maybe mental pain (girls baldness at teen age or something).
Please don't give me that "OMG life must not be killed crap", because without a working, self-aware brain, there is not life (except in plant form).
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