DNA Analysis Suggests Humans Interbred With Denisovans

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DNA Analysis Suggests Humans Interbred With Denisovans

Posted by Unknown on Friday August 31, 2012 @09:33AM from the star-trek-romance dept.

ananyo writes "Tens of thousands of years ago modern humans crossed paths with the group of hominins known as the Neandertals. Researchers now think they also met another, less-known group called the Denisovans. The only trace that we have found, however, is a single finger bone and two teeth, but those fragments have been enough to cradle wisps of Denisovan DNA across thousands of years inside a Siberian cave. Now a team of scientists has been able to reconstruct their entire genome from these meager fragments. The analysis supports the idea that Neandertals and Denisovans were more closely related to one another than either was to modern humans and also suggests new ways that early humans may have spread across the globe." wombatmobile linked to an article that focuses on the new techniques used to sequence the DNA of the bone fragments in question.

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No kidding by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:38 · Score: 1

I'd like to cross my DNA with Irina Denisova too!
Considering... by camperdave · 2012-08-31 09:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Considering what I've seen on the net, it doesn't surprise me in the least that H.Sapiens has interbred with anything and everything. The only surprising element would be whether or not there were offspring.

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1. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 10:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  This probably won't be popular because it's not especially PC, but it's starting to actually appear that the 3 classical types of human as defined by 19th century Racial Science are becoming more scientifically delineated. Or at least things are breaking down broadly in similar ways. After-all, at some point there was a gross separation between Asians, Africans, Europeans, and the rest (that are usually a mix of 1+ of the others).
  One of the authors of this study or the others I read was talking about how he believed for a long time that Neandarthals are a sub-species of homo sapiens, while from this un-mixed homo sapiens are more closely related to the original and modern-day Africans, and then this Denisovans are related to more eastern groups including Pacific Islanders, Aboriginal Australian, and (maybe) what was classically related to Mongoloids?
  Still homo sapiens from a breeding standpoint but noticeably distinct even if it's 0.1-0.5% of the DNA. Doesn't mean anyone is better than others but we're phenotypically different if only in body morphology.
  
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2. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 10:14 · Score: 0
  
  Lol, I first misread the headline as "interbred with dinosaurs". Well, the creationists at least might think that was possible.
  I would almost go to a creationism museum to see the graphics for that. Can you imagine this shooped with a woman's body on the bottom?
  
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3. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:15 · Score: 0
  
  Since some of their DNA appears in modern humans there must have been fertile offspring.
4. Re:Considering... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 10:16 · Score: 0
  
  Not only is it not PC, it's wrong.
  I mean, wow, right out of 100 years ago.
  It's dead, Jim.
  
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5. Re:Considering... by an+unsound+mind · 2012-08-31 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  Different human groups always have and always will interbreed to leave just the "human" race.
  The species keeps evolving. It'll probably change in ways drastic enough that we wouldn't even recognize it as "human" anymore. Well, except for that interbreeding thing.
6. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 10:30 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry to respond to myself, but I was more than a little imprecise in what I was referring to with 3 races. According to that Wikipedia article (the truthiest truth on the Internet), I was referring to what UNESCO "gives the examples of the Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid race". I suppose I was under the mistaken impression that this was already conventionally understood despite the fact that I acknowledged above, and UNESCO does as well, that they/we "maintain that there are no 'pure races' and that biological variability was as great within any race as between races. [Their statement] argued that there is no scientific basis for believing that there are any innate differences in intellectual, psychological or emotional potential among races." All this may be well and true, but again, there are phenotypic differences in morphology and, for me, I think this would be very satisfying to shove in creationists face over their reasoning for the Biblical Tower of Babel beyond the other arguments.
  
  More precision in how people migrated and divided are wonderful pieces of science in my opinion, and it's amazing to me to see how evolution and diversification occurred on such a recent time-scale (less than 100,000 or even less than 30,000 years).
  
  Wow!
  
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7. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  If you read between the lines in these articles closely you'll see what I'm talking about. They're certainly skirting the subject like you for PC reasons but take a look for yourself. At some point, there were forks or bifurcations in the races and to ignore that is to promote ignorance. I am not suggesting a difference in mental/physical capacities between races or anything that was traditionally associated with this Racial Science. But I don't believe the Tower of Babel was the thing that created the different races of the world. Do you?!
  
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8. Re:Considering... by cyber-vandal · 2012-08-31 10:40 · Score: 1, Offtopic
  
  Do you think the one on the bottom is being legitimately raped or does it have ways of shutting the whole thing down?
9. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 10:43 · Score: 0
  
  Do you think the one on the bottom is being legitimately raped or does it have ways of shutting the whole thing down?
  Well, if I was the sort of person that would go to a creationist museum to see these graphics then yes, I would believe her body would shut it down if it was a legitimate rape. However, take a look at the smile on that bottom Tyranny's face? That's no "legitimate" rape!
  
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10. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:58 · Score: 0
  
  You can always ignore what geekoid has to say. He's an opinionated idiot who always ignores facts when it suits him.
11. Re:Considering... by MightyMartian · 2012-08-31 11:04 · Score: 2
  
  Genetically there are something like 5 or 6 six races. Five races of sub-Saharan Africans, and then a sixth race everyone else. We know enough about the genetic makeup of various populations to put to rest pretty much all of Victorian racial theory.
  The problem here is concentrating on what usually amount to relatively insignificant morphological features of modern H. sapiens. Many features like skin color, shape of the eyes, slight deviations in skull shape, and so on are really very recent changes in modern humans. The fact remains that sub-Saharan Africa holds the highest degree of genetic diversity, and that almost all other populations throughout the rest of the world are far less genetically diverse, and it is this fact that has rendered the morphology obsessions of the Victorians. Not that different non-African populations don't have their unique morphological and heritable differences, but they really are very minor.
  If Neandertals and Denisovans did interbreed with humans (and there always seems to be a back-and-forth on this), they didn't leave much in the way of a genetic heritage in modern humans.
  
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12. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:10 · Score: 0
  
  I am not suggesting a difference in mental/physical capacities between races or anything that was traditionally associated with this Racial Science.
  Sure. Because we know evolution stopped from the neck up.
13. Re:Considering... by MightyMartian · 2012-08-31 11:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  First of all you have to provide a scientific definition of "race". What the Victorians had was anything but a scientific definition. They had no genetic data, no real knowledge of the migration patterns out of Africa. Hell, most of the Victorian racial theorists assumed that humans arose in Eurasia, and that Africa was some sort of dead-beat dead-end where the lower races ended up.
  So, get to it. Give us a genetically meaningful definition of "race". I think you will find what most geneticists who have studied the issue have found, that if there are races; or more preferably sub-types of H. sapiens sapiens, they really do not line up very well at all with the morphological divisions that the Europeans set up. We have a much clearer picture now of how things went down when modern humans pushed out of sub-Saharan Africa. Still holes, but enough to tell us that simplistic notions like "negroid", "caucasian" and "mongoloid" do not give anything close to a reasonable picture of genetic patterns.
  
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14. Re:Considering... by chichilalescu · 2012-08-31 11:17 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  you do realize that there are communities in Africa where you can take two random people, check how much their DNA differs, and you will find that that difference is "bigger" than the differences between most "Europeans" and "Asians", right?
  the color of people's skin is related to the amount of sun their ancestors had to deal with. I'm not sure how long back in time, but probably a lot. the length of people's limbs and the thickness of their body has to do with the amount of heat their ancestors had to dissipate. that's about it.
  what this means in practice is that if you take blueeyed whiteskinned northern people, and you put them on a tropical island, and you check again in N generations (I'm not sure how large N is, but it shouldn't be very large), then you will find black eyed people with darker skin, only because it's easier to live there with these properties. in fact, I don't think it would be very easy to convince blue eyed whiteskinned northern people to go live on a tropical island...
  back to the issue of DNA differences: unless you have training in the area, don't try to draw conclusions, because these are complicated issues. for instance I read somewhere that when all you have to work with are bones, then you can say that two specimens are different species; but when you look at the DNA, you might say that they are indeed the same species. for instance pygmies are homo sapiens.
  my advice to you is to either get a degree in the field, or stop believing what people said 100 years ago, when it was still acceptable to be a racist in many circles (thus the biased conclusions you've been reading).
  
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15. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  I think you're agreeing with my premise. These data are arriving at a scientific delineation of how the Victorian (and we still consider) races formed. That they broadly align with the Victorian view of morphological differences is interesting in my opinion even if the Victorians weighted more the differences rather than the similarities. In all, this is what I find interesting from a temporal perspective because 100-30,000 years ago is not that much beyond recorded history in the global perspective...
  
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16. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:27 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Provide us with a scientific definition of "language". Or else we'll have to give up on simplistic notions like English, German and French as well.
17. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:34 · Score: 0
  
  Hmm. An anthropologist can look at a thigh bone and identify the race of the person it came from. A DNA sample can also be used to identify the race of a person. I think we're dealing with a little more than skin color here.
18. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 11:37 · Score: 1
  
  I generally agree with everything you said with one caveat, but as an aside I would be interested in your citations on environment effects on population genotypes if you have them.
  
  My caveat would be that I also know that basically anyone >2 cousins apart (I believe) have about the same DNA matching as a % of total DNA. However, the total % is not a very fair comparison between two closely related populations. The X% difference between your two African populations is probably substantially different between one of those African communities and a comparably sized European population as defined by X% per volume. The cross-correlation is the key.
  
  However, out of my ignorance I would nominally agree that the location relative to the equator is a big factor in skin pigment levels in peoples and that's frankly irrelevant to me. Skin pigment doesn't define the races in my opinion.
  
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19. Re:Considering... by Michael+Woodhams · 2012-08-31 11:39 · Score: 2
  
  The world of human genetics, according to Svante Pääbo*:
  A first wave of humans left Africa on the order of half a million years ago. These lead to the Neandertals and probably the Denisovans. (But perhaps the Denisovans were a separate migration.)
  On the order of 100,000 years ago, modern humans left Africa. On the way, they did a little interbreeding with Neandertals, so that all modern non-Africans are about 4% Neandertal by descent.
  A subpopulation of these interbred with the Denisovans, and this subpopulation ended up in Melanesia, but somehow left no genetic trace between there and Siberia where the Denisovan finger was found.
  I see very little similarity between this and the 19th century 'racial science'. If you insist on dividing people up into categories, this research has three categories, as do *some* of the 19th century schemes, and one of those categories is African. That really is as far as the resemblance goes.
  * Errors are mine, not Prof Pääbo's. Dates are from other sources and from my memory.
  
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20. Re:Considering... by similar_name · 2012-08-31 11:40 · Score: 1
  
  His post did make me wonder. Since Neanderthals are believed to have inhabited Europe and West Asia it seems Europeans and people in West Asia would be likely to have more neanderthal DNA than groups from Africa or East Asia. I mean from a genetic lineage it's interesting to think about how different groups of homo sapiens split apart and came back together from time to time.
  
  I could see a few hundred millennial from now our descendants digging up bones on different continents classifying them into different groups. Then realizing, hey these guys interbred. It's humorous to imagine that they might pick one group to call homo sapiens (or whatever our descendants decide to call themselves) and the others they'll call sub-species. In that respect we may unknowingly be very racists in calling Neanderthals and Denisovans sub-species.
21. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks, so far, you have had the most intriguing insight into this but from what I've read there are still big movers/shakers in the field that think Neandartals/Denisovans did interbreed and also have a significant impact on the the downstream homo sapiens. Do you have any good review papers you can point me to that would summarize the state of the science?
  
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22. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 11:59 · Score: 2
  
  Exactly, and why in one of my posts the big Max Planck guy (Svante Pääbo in this article) that has been doing a lot of this DNA analysis thinks they are all sub-species of homo sapiens. In one article I read, he basically said he doesn't want to get into the debate about what a species is because it gets complicated. They interbred though he thinks from what I've read and he did one of the big Neanderthal studies and this Denisovans one and compared them to modern humans so I think he has a better idea than most people.
  
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23. Re:Considering... by Monkey-Man2000 · 2012-08-31 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  Fair enough, but I think based on this, there is some subdivision that is being recognized in the scientific chronology that at least "remotely" corresponds to modern reality.
  
  To follow the PC approach of being blind that there ARE differences (if only morphological) between groups of humans just promotes ignorance. I want to understand how these migration patterns developed. I get the impression these scientists are under a lot of pressure to make sure that everyone was well-mixed 60-100,000 years ago and the differences we see now in everyday life are just the corner cases of this wildly variable population.
  
  However, the striking refutation of this supposition is that you can't dispute that most Africans that live near Africans look like Africans, Asians that live near Asians look like Asians, and Caucasians living near Caucasians look like Caucasians, and all the permutations you can think of in between back in Victorian times.
  
  There's something there that's different, and I refuse to believe the Tower of Babel was the thing that divided homo sapiens into 3+ races! It's still amazing to me how humans today look drastically different than ancestors from just 30,000 years ago. As I've said in a previous post. That's BARELY, pre-historic. Imagine what we'll look like in 3000 AD. My suspicion -- we'll look like the Greys. :)
  
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24. Re:Considering... by pitchpipe · 2012-08-31 13:03 · Score: 0
  
  Considering what I've seen on the net, it doesn't surprise me in the least that H.Sapiens has interbred with anything and everything
  Oh come on now, Apple fans aren't that bad.
  
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25. Re:Considering... by johnny+cashed · 2012-08-31 13:06 · Score: 1
  
  Interbreeding implies offspring. Otherwise it's just sex.
26. Re:Considering... by quenda · 2012-08-31 13:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  First of all you have to provide a scientific definition of "race".
  There are similar problems trying to define species, genus etc. DNA and other new data shows that the tree of life is more complex than we realised.
  But a lack of a single simple definiton does not mean that species or race are invalid or unuseful categories.
27. Re:Considering... by swalve · 2012-08-31 13:58 · Score: 1
  
  I seem to remember that 4% of european/whitey DNA can be traced to Neanderthal?
28. Re:Considering... by HiThere · 2012-08-31 14:13 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  That's not actually unlikely. And the same reasoning would show why Neanderthal mitochondria don't show up in modern humans.
  In particular, it appears (or has appeared to a few anthropoligists several years ago) that Neanderthal women had a smaller birth canal that Cro-Magnon women, so if a normal Cro-Magnon infant were to attempt to be born to a Neanderthal woman, there would likely be a brith problem fatal to both the mother and the child. Going the other way around, however, should work. Neanderthal heads were slimmer than Cro-Magnon heads. And since mitochondria are only inherited along the maternal line, that would explain the absence of Neanderthal mitochondria in modern humans.
  This may not be quite what you meant, but it's the way I think it happened.
  
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29. Re:Considering... by HiThere · 2012-08-31 14:30 · Score: 2
  
  Species is fairly simple:
  Two animal varieties are of the same species if, given a chance, they interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
  Now this causes problems when you adopt a simple model, and then encounter ring species, like herring gulls. But it works fine for local populations. Just don't expect a global definition and it's ok.
  Genus is a totally artificial construct created by people to make their theories simpler to describe. It doesn't have any natural validity, any more than green or blue does. Where do you draw the line, and what do you call turquoise? It may be an artificial grouping, but it's a useful one. You build a Genus out of species that can be traced back to a common ancestral species. That defines the grouping mechanism. And within the constraints of that grouping mechanism, you draw the genus boundaries wherever it suits you.
  And yes indeed, the tree of life is much more complex. Viruses, e.g., can transfer genes between kingdoms, not just species. There are animals that have acquired plant genes. But this never happens to such an extent as to blur even species boundaries, much less genus boundaries.
  Race, however, does not seem to be a useful category, unless you are primarily interested in hair styles or melanin. The other, less observable characteristics (e.g. blood type) do not appear to follow the same boundaries. I was, I'll admit, afraid to marry a black woman in my younger days, because I was afraid she would carry sickle cell anemia. That does seem to be a genuine association (though far from certain). But many Semites also carry that disease. Esp. the ones from North Africa. Because it's a useful survival trait in areas where malaria is endemic. So it's following an environmental boundary rather than a "racial" one.
  
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30. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-08-31 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, oh... now we have to define "useful" :)
  If you are trying to use "race" to predict how medication might affect a person, you will probably be disappointed. Sure, you can ask people to self-identify and see patterns emerge from the "black" and "white" and "Asian or Pacific Islander" categories... but at the end of the day, as a physician, when a black guy walks into your office you can't give him any kind of certainty as to what his specific reaction might be. So race is useless in this context.
  If you are trying to use "race" to categorize people in the same way that you would categorize birds by plumage or ants by mandible size, then yeah, it's pretty useful for that.
  
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31. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-08-31 14:36 · Score: 1
  
  A DNA sample can also be used to identify the race of a person.
  You sure about that? I have some kids with African, European, and American ancestry and I'd love you to tell me what their "race" is, with or without a DNA sample.
  
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32. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-08-31 14:42 · Score: 1
  
  I seem to remember that 4% of european/whitey DNA can be traced to Neanderthal?
  Yes, and Asian and Aboriginal Australian, according to the linked Wikipedia article.
  
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33. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 14:43 · Score: 0
  
  If you are trying to use "race" to categorize people in the same way that you would categorize birds by plumage or ants by mandible size, then yeah, it's pretty useful for that.
  It also comes in pretty handy if you want to avoid getting mugged, raped or murdered, too.
34. Re:Considering... by HiThere · 2012-08-31 14:44 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is that there *IS* no scientific definition of race, and there probably can't be. Species is a natural group (with fuzzy boundaries, of course). Race is not only artificial, about it's only use is political. And because it doesn't have a scientific definition, and people WANT to have definitions for words that they believe model the world, people tend to believe the political definitions. This DOES have social consequences, but the consequences aren't inherent in any racial differences. (Though being raised in a stressful environment does tend to cause epigenetic changes that can be inherited. These can probably be ameliorated, but we don't know how just yet. Or if you can manage to raise the descendants in a non-stressful environment after a few generations the epigenetic markers will decay and not be renewed. How to manage that with people rather than lab rats and mice isn't clear.)
  
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35. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-08-31 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I've heard the song "Strange Fruit".
  
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36. Re:Considering... by HiThere · 2012-08-31 14:56 · Score: 1
  
  A worthy point, but an invalid one.
  These groups *were* largely reproductively isolated. This doesn't require that they couldn't interbreed. Not when the world is large, and travel is slow, dangerous, and uncomfortable. (Did you know that travel and travail were the same word with the combined meaning until around the time of the railroad.) So the groups didn't have much chance to interbreed. Populations were SMALL, especially in the north, and small isolated populations experience lots of genetic drift. If we were a smaller animal, and not as given to roaming, there would probably have been several separate species of homo by this time. But we kept interchanging genes at sufficient speed to keep a single species. There isn't really sufficient evidence to claim that Homo Neanderthalis is a separate species from Homo Sapiens. There's provocative indications in both directions. And perhaps the Denisovians combined with the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons were a ring species. (Check out Herring gulls.) I.e, it could be that Cro-Magnon essentially couldn't interbred with Neanderthals, but the could both interbreed with Denisovians. And there are likely to be several other intermediate groups out there that just haven't yet been discovered. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. First you need to ask "On what grounds would you expect to have the evidence? And how reasonable is that expectation?"
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
37. Re:Considering... by neonsignal · 2012-08-31 14:59 · Score: 2
  
  Language boundaries are defined by mutual intelligibility of the communication system. This can be simplistic, but it provides a good first approximation that is testable. There are border cases (such as language chains), but on the whole it is a useful definition.
  In comparison, dialect contours are defined in terms of specific language features. What speakers call a "dialect" is an identification, and while this may correspond roughly to collections of language features, it is really a sociolinguistic definition of language variety.
  The notion of race is analogous to these sociolinguistic definitions, not to language; it is not defined by external factors, but by social ideas. There may be superficial features that are assumed to be associated with particular "races" (much as superficial language features are assumed to be associated with particular dialects), but these features are a poor definition of "race", because they are not clustered, and cross the boundaries of what people perceive as "race". In other words, "race" is a social construct.
  It is the notion of species that is analogous to language. Species boundaries are defined by fertile offspring. Again, there are border cases, but it is testable.
38. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 15:15 · Score: 0
  
  I think you're agreeing with my premise.
  No he isn't agreeing with your premise. He's saying that 'race' doesn't exist. Geneticists agree with him. This isn't PC, it's science.
39. Re:Considering... by similar_name · 2012-08-31 16:50 · Score: 1
  
  I don't follow. Which part is invalid?
40. Re:Considering... by billstewart · 2012-08-31 17:41 · Score: 1
  
  There's far more variability within Africa than there is within Europeans (or for that matter between Europeans vs. some Africans.) Some of those groups of people headed north, some headed west, some south, they spread around different parts of Africa with different climates and terrains.
  
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41. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 22:33 · Score: 0
  
  Commandment #11: Do not discuss race, because someone might have their feeling hurt when the truth is told.
42. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-01 00:44 · Score: 0
  
  Easy. Their race is "mixed". Which is exactly what a DNA sample would reveal.
43. Re:Considering... by khallow · 2012-09-01 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  First of all you have to provide a scientific definition of "race".
  One such can be provided via morphology. It's good enough to determine general ethnicity (as we define it) of skeletons, for example.
44. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-09-01 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  Then there wouldn't be any "black" people in America, and all of the Hispanics would be "mixed" as well.
  If your cataloging system can't actually catalog anyone, it's useless.
  
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45. Re:Considering... by nbauman · 2012-09-01 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  In medicine, there are a lot of pragmatic associations with race. For example, there is a gene that is moderately widespread in the Caribbean population which makes them especially sensitive to morphine compounds. Sometimes people have violent coughing, and codeine is a standard treatment, but in patients with sensitivity to codeine, a normal dose can cause a life-threatening or fatal overdose with depression of breathing and blood pressure.
  So as a physician, if a black Caribbean guy walks into your office with a severe cough, you would be more careful about prescribing codeine.
  In principle, if you knew the gene, you could send a DNA sample to a laboratory, but by the time you got the results the problem would be over. (And a lot of times we don't even know whether it's a genetic or environmental effect.)
  Sure, racial characteristics are imprecise. You might have a Polynesian who self-identifies as Caribbean, and the racial category would be misleading.
  But there are lots of tests and rules in medicine that are equally imprecise.
  Now, realize I'm not using the term "race" with the cultural baggage of defining your place on the Great Chain of Being from pond scum to Englishmen.
  I'm using it as an easy office test to visually identify people who are more likely than random to be in a certain gene pool.
46. Re:Considering... by nbauman · 2012-09-01 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm. An anthropologist can look at a thigh bone and identify the race of the person it came from.
  
  I don't think modern anthropologists talk about race any more. They talk about "populations."
  
  A DNA sample can also be used to identify the race of a person. I think we're dealing with a little more than skin color here.
  DNA sequencing of many populations around the world shows how related different populations are, but the populations don't correspond to 19th-century categories of races.
47. Re:Considering... by longbot · 2012-09-01 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  "Her mother, a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), and her father, a false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens), met on the job in the Whaler's Cove show. Since they were two very different animals, it was not expected that they would produce an offspring, but they did, making Kekaimalu the world's only known living wholphin."
  
  What was that you were saying?
  
  --
  I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
48. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-01 04:59 · Score: 0
  
  Captain Kirk did it with a rock.
49. Re:Considering... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-09-01 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  Lol, I first misread the headline as "interbred with dinosaurs". Well, the creationists at least might think that was possible.
  The creationists would probably label it as sauromy and point it out as one of the reasons for the global flood.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
50. Re:Considering... by HiThere · 2012-09-01 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  Species is defined on populations, not on individuals. If Kekaimalu bred with another wholphin, they might have a chance to establish a breeding population. If, however Kekaimalu didn't breed, then it wouldn't count at all. If it bred with either a dolphin or another false killer whale, then it would most probably just act as a means in interspecific gene transport. It's quite unlikely that it would establish a viable breeding population. But if they did, then it could result in a new species. (I don't claim that the edges of a species are sharply defined. In fact I have already mentioned "ring species", which rather disproves that model.)
  FWIW, I doubt that the species could become fixed, because killer whales commonly eat dolphins. This would limit the potential for new individuals to be born. OTOH, I don't know about "false killer whales".
  Also note that Tiglons (tiger, lion crossbreeds) can be produced in captivity, but do not seem to exist in the wild. And IIRC, they are not fertile. This same is quite likely of wholphins. As such, they would be as irrelevant to any definition of species as any other mule.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
51. Re:Considering... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-01 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  It's actually pretty easy to come up with an objective and accurate definition of race. You just take various genes, and start looking for those which cluster nicely according to the "everyday" definition of race. Once you've found such a group, then that's your scientific definition. And you can get such groups that correlate extremely well with "everyday" definition, like 95% accuracy - which is not at all surprising, since both our simplistic notion of race, and genetic diversity, both have roots in geographic isolation of different populations.
  Whether it's actually useful for anything is another matter entirely.
52. Re:Considering... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-01 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  Two animal varieties are of the same species if, given a chance, they interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
  Define "given a chance". What if their physiology precludes them from mating, but artificial insemination would produce fertile offspring?
  Also, in most cases the offspring is not 100% infertile, but rather there is a chance of infertility. For example, not all mules are actually infertile. On the other hand, even within what we conventionally see as species, there is also a certain percentage of people born infertile due to how the genes of their parents combined. Where do you draw the line?
  All these categories are arbitrary, and species are no exception. We just draw the lines where it's convenient for us to do so.
53. Re:Considering... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-01 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  you do realize that there are communities in Africa where you can take two random people, check how much their DNA differs, and you will find that that difference is "bigger" than the differences between most "Europeans" and "Asians", right?
  This is the case because both Europeans and Asians are descendants of different, and relatively small,groups of African hominids that left the continent early on, and who have interbred at some point. So Africa has by far the most genetic diversity, since that's where most of the genetic material of our species remained throughout our history.
  That said, if you check specific parts of DNA for differences (basically, things that are responsible for most prominent features in the phenotype), you can easily find those parts which are pronouncedly different between Africans and Asians or Africans and Europeans, such that all the traditional races form tight, widely separate clusters if you plot it all on the graph.
  
  what this means in practice is that if you take blueeyed whiteskinned northern people, and you put them on a tropical island, and you check again in N generations (I'm not sure how large N is, but it shouldn't be very large), then you will find black eyed people with darker skin, only because it's easier to live there with these properties. in fact, I don't think it would be very easy to convince blue eyed whiteskinned northern people to go live on a tropical island...
  Well, duh. That's precisely how evolution works in general.
54. Re:Considering... by RockDoctor · 2012-09-01 08:35 · Score: 1
  
  The Greeks certainly did think it was possible - that whole Leda thing.
  (Speaking as a full-time geologist and part-time palaeontologist, birds are not dinosaur descendants ; birds are dinosaurs. For all meaningful values of "bird", "are", and "dinosaur.")
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
55. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-09-01 14:32 · Score: 1
  
  So as a physician, if a black Caribbean guy walks into your office with a severe cough, you would be more careful about prescribing codeine.
  But if a black guy walks into your office, you have nothing without knowing that they are also from the Caribbean.
  
  You might have a Polynesian who self-identifies as Caribbean, and the racial category would be misleading.
  Or, more likely, you'd have a guy who is 1/4 "black" and looks white and you'd miss the link altogether even though he carries the gene. Unless you approach all of your patients with the same caution, you'll run into trouble. This is why my wife's OB made me get a sickle-cell trait test even though I'm white.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
56. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  No he isn't agreeing with your premise. He's saying that 'race' doesn't exist. Geneticists agree with him.
  
  Sure, if they're idiots. People who have open eyes and ears can see there are clear differences between races. The GP asked for a "meaningful definition of race." There is no such thing, just as there is no meaningful definition of species; it's difficult to classify something that varies so much from one region of the globe to another. Doesn't change the fact that differences certainly do exist, however. Scientists have noted this for thousands of years; only since Nazism has this type of discussion become taboo among idiots. The thinking people of the world know that race does matter, even if it should not be used to discriminate and hate.
57. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 03:04 · Score: 1
  
  The notion of race is analogous to these sociolinguistic definitions, not to language; it is not defined by external factors, but by social ideas.
  Wrong. It's determined by genetics.
  
  There may be superficial features that are assumed to be associated with particular "races"
  Wrong. If your weak and pasty ass had to go toe to toe with a Mali warrior, or a Viking, or you found yourself in a logical argument with a German, I'm sure you'd quickly find those "features" aren't quite so superficial after all.
  
  In other words, "race" is a social construct.
  So Ghanans, Japanese, Norwegians, and Cherokee are all of the same race, in your view? Take a child from each country and raise them in the exact same environment, and they would grow up to behave exactly the same, or even significantly the same?
58. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Two animal varieties are of the same species if, given a chance, they interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
  Except there have been many, many, many documented cases of accidental and intentional cross pollenization between species, in some cases producing fertile offspring which are nothing like the parents. How does that fit into your simple little definition?
59. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  Species is defined on populations, not on individuals. If Kekaimalu bred with another wholphin, they might have a chance to establish a breeding population. If, however Kekaimalu didn't breed, then it wouldn't count at all. If it bred with either a dolphin or another false killer whale, then it would most probably just act as a means in interspecific gene transport. It's quite unlikely that it would establish a viable breeding population. But if they did, then it could result in a new species. (I don't claim that the edges of a species are sharply defined. In fact I have already mentioned "ring species", which rather disproves that model.)
  Good job wasting our time by completely missing the point. The original argument was that race does exist; your counter example of "species" is clearly not a valid argument against that idea, since species themselves are far from fixed. It's all invented by humans. Just because the idea of "race" makes you squeamish doesn't change its validity as a means of classification.
60. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  If you are trying to use "race" to categorize people in the same way that you would categorize birds by plumage or ants by mandible size, then yeah, it's pretty useful for that.
  I see what you did there; you failed to point out that race is also great for explaining why the Germans are the economic powerhouse of Europe, while Greece is full of sybarites who enjoy living the high life with minimal output. It also explains why Swiss are so good with money, why Africans are more social and less adventurous on average, why Japanese are so warlike, why Russians are cold and untrustworthy, and why Jews are so damned good with money and business. All of these observations can explained by race and genetics. Aristotle knew all this thousands of years ago, but it seems humans are too busy being offended (and starting eugenics movements) to gain any benefit from it.
61. Re:Considering... by shiftless · 2012-09-02 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  If your cataloging system can't actually catalog anyone, it's useless.
  Your cataloguing system is the most useless, because it doesn't exist.
62. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-09-02 08:35 · Score: 1
  
  My non-existent cataloging system is exactly as effective as yours. That's my point. You are wasting your time and I am not.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
63. Re:Considering... by MightyYar · 2012-09-02 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Wasn't Greece busy inventing astronomy and democracy while the Germans were still banging rocks together?
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
64. Re:Considering... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-03 02:23 · Score: 0
  
  I'm in the same boat and had the same test when my partner was pregnant. I have difficulty self identifying as any race, while my grandfather would self identify as "black Caribbean" his father was half native islander, I pride myself on my rich genetic make-up and am largely amused that it causes other people problems.
  My daughter has an even greater spread as her maternal great-grandmother is Sri Lankan, yet like me she has blue eyes, dark hair and pale skin.
whoa by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:41 · Score: 0

Totally thought that said Denobulans!
Denisovans Extinct? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-08-31 09:41 · Score: 3, Funny

I beg to differ. The Denisovan's were our next-door neighbors, when I was in grade-school.

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
1. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by okcdan · 2012-08-31 09:47 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Kind of dating yourself there Jeremiah. I do applaud older folks who embrace technology like the interwebs though, congrats!
  
  --
  D.
2. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:50 · Score: 0
  
  Did they have you over for dinner?
  Some of their DNA lives on. The DNA reveals some surprising dietary history.
  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0410_030410_cannibal.html
3. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-08-31 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  Well, Cain was always pressing for the family to come over. He was a real pr!ck, tho. We much more enjoyed his brother Abel.
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
4. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-08-31 10:45 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Carbon dating myself....
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
5. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 10:51 · Score: 1, Offtopic
  
  The article says the genes were found in MODERN humans, not Denisovans.
  I knew a guy who got Creutzfeld-Yakov, presumably from eating deer meat. At least, I think it was deer meat. He hunted a lot in Colorado which at the time had an outbreak of CWD. But then again he was a priest so he ate the Body of Christ a lot too. But there's little evidience that Catholics are particularly prone to CYD so I think Jesus was clean.
  Based on that anecdotal evidence, I think it likely that the prion-resistance gene likely was selected for because early humans ate deer, cattle, sheep and other animals that are prone to prion diseases. They certainly eat those things a lot more often than they eat each other.
6. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by shugah · 2012-08-31 11:02 · Score: 1
  
  I swear it was consensual.
  
  --
  If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
7. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-08-31 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  I believe that it was a reliance on anecdotal evidence that extended his days...
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
8. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 12:21 · Score: 0
  
  They may have once been your neighbours, but they took the obvious exit. (The one that wasn't north or south).
9. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by baegucb · 2012-08-31 15:55 · Score: 0
  
  Nope. Just dating yourself ;)
10. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by jamstar7 · 2012-08-31 16:28 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Carbon dating myself....
  Nope. Just dating yourself ;)
  Strange, he didn't mention he's from Arkansas...
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
11. Re:Denisovans Extinct? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-09-01 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  I think THOSE jokes belong back on the circumcision/foreskin thread, no?
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
Clone possibility? by 4wdloop · 2012-08-31 09:43 · Score: 1

>> Now a team of scientists has been able to reconstruct their entire genome from these meager fragments.
So, can they be re-created?

--
4wdloop
1. Re:Clone possibility? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:01 · Score: 0
  
  In due time, soon we'll create our own alien species after being impatient for waiting. The alien species will have a little mouth inside the big mouth
2. Re:Clone possibility? by Black+Parrot · 2012-08-31 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  >> Now a team of scientists has been able to reconstruct their entire genome from these meager fragments.
  So, can they be re-created?
  Another Jurassic Park sequel is even more likely.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
3. Re:Clone possibility? by ColdWetDog · 2012-08-31 10:12 · Score: 2
  
  IIRC, the team managed to get 91% of the genome down 'pretty accurately'. That is a technological tour-de-force in and of itself but likely not enough to 'clone' somebody. Unless, perhaps, you added additional 'spacer' DNA - like from a frog.
  "I'm French, how do you think I got this outrageous accent?"
  "What are you doing in England then?"
  "Mind your own business."
  Na, would never work.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
4. Re:Clone possibility? by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  Would this count as "experimenting on humans" without their consent if Denisovans were sort of a different species? Or for that matter, is the thing you're experimenting on a human before you're done building it from scratch?
old news is old. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:47 · Score: 0

Old news I watched a national geographic special about this probably about 7 months ago... http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101222-new-human-species-dna-nature-science-evolution-fossil-finger/ oh look a story from 2010...
Listen... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Humans have tried to interbreed with just about every species imaginable. Sheep, for instance. And, when drunk, even animals which sometimes predate upon humans. So I have no doubt that modern humans have interbred with Denisovan babes. We are some seriously horny, depraved bastards.
1. Re:Listen... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:14 · Score: 0
  
  Humans have tried to interbreed with just about every species imaginable.
  Sure. Just look at Heidi Klum!
2. Re:Listen... by samoanbiscuit · 2012-08-31 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the study determined that the most common type of mating was Denisovan males with human females.
3. Re:Listen... by gmhowell · 2012-09-01 18:02 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the study determined that the most common type of mating was Denisovan males with human females.
  The GP didn't say anything about genders. Anyone who has been around women know that they like to get freaky.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
4. Re:Listen... by samoanbiscuit · 2012-09-02 15:28 · Score: 1
  
  The GP didn't say anything about genders. Anyone who has been around women know that they like to get freaky.
  GP said:
  
  So I have no doubt that modern humans have interbred with Denisovan babes.
  
  And said:
  
  We are some seriously horny, depraved bastards.
  
  Those words have gender, and using them in the context suggests the GP thought it was mainly men getting freaky.
  Signed,
  Someone who's been around lots of women.
5. Re:Listen... by gmhowell · 2012-09-03 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  I've heard both terms used to refer to both males and females. Connotation, I'll give you.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Must have Been Liberals by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:05 · Score: 0

Dont forget the republicans. There is nothing they cannot fuck either.
And this is news how, exactly? by Nate+the+greatest · 2012-08-31 10:09 · Score: 1

I guess I'm the only one who saw Star Trek. Kirk got it on with a lot of alien babes.
1. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by fm6 · 2012-08-31 11:12 · Score: 2
  
  It seems to me that Kirk's babes were all as human as he was. Like a lot of TV shows and movies from the 50s and 60s, TOS often assumed that other planets would be inhabited by people. TOS sometimes portrayed aliens as having weird physical features (as TNG and its sequels always did), but mostly the "aliens" looked like they came from Southern California — as indeed they did.
  I recently re-watched the original Planet of the Apes. When I first saw it 40 years ago, the teenage me was not bothered by the scientific silliness. But this time, I thought it was dumb that Taylor find a world inhabited by ordinary-looking mute humans and English-speaking apes, but it never occurs to him until the final scene that he's on Earth.
2. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by WastedMeat · 2012-08-31 11:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It makes much more sense, and is perfectly compatible with the rest of the plot, if you replace his period of muteness with a delay to learn the language. I have a suspicion this is what was originally intended but they did not want subtitles on the whole film.
3. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by Belial6 · 2012-08-31 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't seem like scientific silliness to me. They directly addressed the issue. "It's a mad house!!! It's a mad house!!!" The whole situation made no sense to Taylor. The thought that Earth would be over thrown by apes and plunged into a primitive society where humans were little more than wild animals to be hunted was less likely in his mind than another planet having a parallel evolution where the apes come out on top. The silliness you are bothered by likely comes more from the fact that you already know it is Earth than from the absurdity of the situation.
4. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by swalve · 2012-08-31 14:04 · Score: 1
  
  Star Trek explains away the humanness of all the aliens by introducing a proto race that seeded the galaxy with its DNA. We are all similar because we are all distantly related.
5. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by fm6 · 2012-08-31 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  The proto race was invented much later, in TNG. It was one of many silly attempts to explain small stuff, like that plague that made Klingons look like humans. The writers for the TOS were less careful about science, and didn't see any contradictions in having aliens look human.
  Besides, why did most of the aliens Kirk met look like plain humans, while the aliens Picard met all look like people wearing latex masks?
6. Re:And this is news how, exactly? by fm6 · 2012-08-31 16:00 · Score: 1
  
  What you're saying is, if I go to a random planet inhabited by intelligent life, I should expect to find people and apes; the only thing screwy about this planet Taylor has discovered is that the apes can talk and the people can't.
  Sorry, that's bad science. It ignores an observed scientific fact: divergent evolution. When an ecosystem is isolated, it evolves species that are different from those that evolved elsewhere. The longer it's isolated, the more different it is. That was demonstrated when Australia, and the first specimens were sent back to Europe; they were so weird, scientists assumed that they were victims of an elaborate hoax.
  If an isolated continent on Earth can evolve weird life forms over a period of 100 million years, how weird can life be on a planet that's always been isolated? Serious Science Fiction tends to assume that it's pretty damn weird.
  '
  Of course, it's hard to find actors with 3 legs and 2 heads. So SF movies and TV shows have to populate alien worlds with very unalien people. There are two ways to deal with the scientific problem: you can invent a reason why people would appear on other planets (the Stargate franchise assumes that Earth has been repeatedly raided by aliens seeking slaves). Or you can just say, "don't worry about, it's just a story." PotA pretends to do the first, but really does the second.
Humans Interbred With Dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:11 · Score: 0

... that would be real news! :-)
rule 34 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:15 · Score: 0

So, it looks like there's a scientific basis for rule 34.
Breaking News by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 10:21 · Score: 0

This just in: Humans are randy.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovanitch by julian67 · 2012-08-31 10:25 · Score: 1

Uh uh uh, oh oh oh, ug ug ug. Home Sapiens girls are easy.
1. Re:One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovanitch by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 11:07 · Score: 1
  
  So are homo-sapiens men.
  This is why we're still around.
2. Re:One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovanitch by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-01 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  Fun fact: of all the apes, humans have the largest penis by both length and circumference, but not the biggest balls.
Go to any college bar on Friday night by Vinegar+Joe · 2012-08-31 10:44 · Score: 1

And you'll see plenty of humans breeding with Neandertals.

--
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
1. Re:Go to any college bar on Friday night by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:43 · Score: 0
  
  Forever alone neckbeard detected...
2. Re:Go to any college bar on Friday night by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-01 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Neandertal girls are stupid, you can just turn them around and fuck em.
Alyson Hannigan by tdelaney · 2012-08-31 10:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Alyson Hannigan is modern-day proof of homo sapiens interbreeding with Denisovans.
1. Re:Alyson Hannigan by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:57 · Score: 0
  
  And a lucky Denisof he is!
A total of five by Grayhand · 2012-08-31 10:55 · Score: 1

It's funny how only two species of recent hominids are commonly known when there were actually five within the last 35,000 years. Most of those died out in the last 15,000 years. the five species are Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, A group known as the Red Deer people, and Homo floresiensis (hobbits). There is debate about the red deer people since no DNA has been found. Their features are very primitive so they are likely a unique group. All survived until near the end of the last ice age with the exception of Neanderthals. When I was growing up the common belief was that except for Neanderthals we out competed the other groups very early on in our history, that obviously wasn't the case. The most interesting thing is none of the other species other than possibly Hobbits which were isolated, there are stories of them into the 1800s, made it past the end of the ice age except for Homo Sapiens. Living conditions should have improved but they either weren't as adaptable as we were to the changing conditions and diet or we out competed them for the resources since it was around that time humans spread to the Americans and extended their range in Europe and Asia.
1. Re:A total of five by MightyMartian · 2012-08-31 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  We do know that while the Neandertals persisted to within 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, the last Neandertals, like the group found on Gibraltar, were marginalized. It seems reasonably likely that pre-modern members of genus Homo in Eurasia never had that high a population, in no small part because wide portions of Eurasia were pretty inhospitable and could not support dense populations. If there was even a small breeding differential between any of these groups and modern Humans, over twenty or thirty thousand years it could have spelled the end, without any special effort. Populations of any organism pushed to the margins of their previous range will usually die out.
  Of course, low population density also increases the likelihood that other genus Homo populations in Eurasia could have been subsumed into the H. sapiens groups as they began to spread across the continent, and while there is some debate about interbreeding, if the populations were small enough you could have had interbreeding without showing some large fraction of modern genes coming from these populations. It would be like throwing a couple of gallons of milk in a swimming pool. Yes, there will be some small portion of the volume of the pool that is milk, but not much.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
2. Re:A total of five by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  Well, we still have the Negroes.
3. Re:A total of five by fm6 · 2012-08-31 11:29 · Score: 2
  
  It's funny how only two species of recent hominids are commonly known
  Not funny at all. The first Neanderthals were dug up in 1829, and have had plenty of time to become a feature of popular culture. Except for the unavoidable Modern Humans, every other hominid is a very recent discovery. The Red Deer Cave people were only discovered in 1979. Hobbits and Denisovans were only discovered in the last decade,
Homo floresiensis? by Michael+Woodhams · 2012-08-31 11:44 · Score: 1

The relatively close proximity of Homo florsiensis remains (Indonesia) and the supposed-partly-descended-from-Denisovans modern population (Melanesia) leads me to speculate that H. floresiensis and Denisovans might be the same. Undoubtedly we'll find out in due course. The big problem is the distance between Indonesia and Siberia - if the (sub)species was so wide spread, we'd expect to have many more remains in between.

--
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Humans... by YrWrstNtmr · 2012-08-31 11:47 · Score: 1

Fucking our neighbors to death for the last million years.
1. Re:Humans... by Sussurros · 2012-08-31 12:21 · Score: 1
  
  So many species! So little time!
  
  --
  I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
Oh, shit! by Type44Q · 2012-08-31 12:00 · Score: 1

DNA Analysis Suggests Humans Interbred With Denisovans
The first time I read that I could have sworn it said "DNA Analysis Suggests Humans Interbred With Dinosaurs!"
1. Re:Oh, shit! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 13:22 · Score: 0
  
  lol. Yes. My brain did the same thing when it scanned ahead to the right. It'll probably end up as a display within the "Sodom" branch of the Creationist Museum.
Denise who? by rossdee · 2012-08-31 12:59 · Score: 0

I'd never heard of Denisovans before - did they save 15% by insuring their cars with Geico?
Definition of "species" by wisnoskij · 2012-08-31 13:00 · Score: 1

Wait, but if we could breed successfully with them then they were not really a different species, by definition. "Race" would be the more accurate word.
"A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring."

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1. Re:Definition of "species" by swalve · 2012-08-31 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  Evolution is fuzzy.
2. Re:Definition of "species" by jc42 · 2012-09-03 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  "Race" would be the more accurate word.
  Not really, because that term has too many emotional/political/social connotations, and is routinely misused in common speech. Biologists mostly use the term "subspecies", which is a synonym without the connotations.
  
  "A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring."
  That's often the first definition given in textbooks, followed by explanations of why it's not a very good definition due to its fuzziness. Thus, one of the common textbook examples discusses wolves, jackals and domestic dogs. Our pet dogs can interbreed with both wolves and jackals, so they're all one species, right? Except that wolves and jackals can't interbreed (or at least don't produce healthy, fertile hybrids), so they're different species. There are many examples like this.
  A common rephrasing that works better is "Populations are the same species if they can and do interbreed in their natural habitat". Wolves, jackals and domestic dogs don't naturally interbreed, mostly because their ranges don't overlap. Wolves are northern, temperate-zone forest creatures, while jackals are primarily tropical and subtropical, and prefer more open landscapes. The "natural habitat" of the domestic dog, of course, is in the vicinity of human habitation, which wolves and jackals avoid due to the powerful predator there that likes to kill them. So wolves, jackals and dogs are classified as separate species due to habitat specilization, despite the fact that we can capture them, interbreed them, and (if one of the pair is a domestic dog) the offspring are viable.
  That second definition is also somewhat fuzzy, of course, but biologists tend to just shrug and say that nature can't be pigeonholed the way we might like. "Species" is a very useful concept, but you have to understand its problems.
  
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3. Re:Definition of "species" by wisnoskij · 2012-09-03 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  I understand, and still prefer my definition.
  Because it will always be fussy and most importantly because I do not want a group of animals I flew to an island previously uninhabited with animals of that type to suddenly become a new species.
  The first definition is the only one that makes any kind of sense, and yes many many examples exists of this web of subspecies with no clear species groupings.
  And you are right about Race, but subspecies has its own connotations and in general human subspecies are called "races". And if I was to call Africans (for example) a subspecies I would probably be labeled a racist because of these aforementioned connotations.
  
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  Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Amazing Progress by Jeff1946 · 2012-08-31 13:27 · Score: 1

To think the discovery of the structure of DNA is only 60 years old. I believe James Watson is still alive. Sort of like the first moon landing was only 66 years after the first manned powered flight. Or the progress from the first transistor to the modern laptop that has five plus billion of them. Anyone care to give some other examples?
1. Re:Amazing Progress by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 22:11 · Score: 0
  
  I can't think of any FROM AFRICA. Isn't that strange.
  That's because James Watson was right, and EVERYBODY knows it.
  Your country is being destroyed by mass immigration from third world countries. Anybody care to prove me wrong?
Re:Must have Been Liberals by swalve · 2012-08-31 14:01 · Score: 1

Fuck over, you mean?
Denisovans are not exinct by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-08-31 14:33 · Score: 4, Informative

Many Melanesians, Indonesians, Malays, Polynesians, Filipinos, as well as indigenous tribe on island of Taiwan, have Denisovan genes in them
In fact, this isn't news anymore
Back in 2010 there have been reports of similar findings. Here's one report from the BBC -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12059564

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slashdot is late to the party by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 14:42 · Score: 0

How is it possible that I found out about this from a TED talk on netflix before it being posted to slashdot (or nature.com?)
Well chronicled by ChrisMaple · 2012-08-31 14:49 · Score: 1

Hank Ketcham has reported on the menacing Dennisonian for 61 years, with the Wilsonian getting the Ruff end of the stick.

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Re:Denisovans not in mainland Asian genes by billstewart · 2012-08-31 17:13 · Score: 1

As you say, and the article says, people in those areas and native Australians have some percentage of Denisovan genes, though mainland Asians don't. (And most Europeans have some percentage of Neandertal - until the articles about the recent Denisovan genetics came out, everything I'd read had suggested that Asians didn't have Neandertal genes, or at least not close to as much as Europeans.)
The explanation's pretty obvious - at one point, one of the the Denisovan's said "Dude, why are we staying here in Siberia? It's too bloody cold! Let's go on vacation somewhere tropical, like Australia or Polynesia!" and everybody realized he was right and took off.
More seriously, though, the H. floresiensis hobbits seem like a really obvious next set of people to do DNA analysis on - we're not sure if they're modern humans or what,

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Genetic diversity in Africa by billstewart · 2012-08-31 17:21 · Score: 1

It's not so much that you'll find diversity between people in a given community, as it is between people in different parts of Africa. (Obviously this is except where modern trade and migration have brought lots of different people together, and by "modern" I'm including the Arab spread across northern Africa after Mohammed and the slave trade years in sub-Saharan Africa.) Humans had a few hundred thousand years of spreading around the continent, finding ecological niches where they could survive, and becoming more diverse. Somewhere along the line a smaller group of them headed north and became Neandertals, and later modern humans headed north and met them and the Denisovans, but a lot of really different people stayed behind.

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Neandertal Gene Percentages by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 17:35 · Score: 0

According to 23&me, the average Northern European has about 2.6% Neandertal (not sure about all Europeans.) Mine's about 3.3%, which is about 99th percentile among Northern Europeans.
Regarding the Neanderthal genes by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-08-31 17:41 · Score: 2

The way I look at it - not scientifically based - just my own observation:
While the Denisovan genes are in the bloodline of the islandic people of mainly West side of the Pacific Ocean, the Neanderthal genes are in the European and Asian bloodline - although percentage wise the Europeans have more than the Asians
It seems to be that the Africans south of the Sahara Desert who are have the most "pure" Homo Sapien Sapien bloodline

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the real significant development here by dutchwhizzman · 2012-08-31 19:18 · Score: 1

What I personally find the real significant development is how they managed to get the genome so complete. They have developed a way go replicate from single strands of DNA, eliminating the need for double strands. Since apparently DNA tends to fall apart into single strands quite fast but the single strands last much longer, this means that a whole lot of DNA that we already have on file for various purposes is suddenly a whole lot more useful. We can now replicate much more damaged and incomplete DNA so we can get much more information out of samples that were considered "useless" until now.

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More Proof.. by Hyperhaplo · 2012-08-31 19:24 · Score: 1

... that humans will have sex with anything..

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1. Re:More Proof.. by erroneus · 2012-08-31 20:26 · Score: 1
  
  I was already going there myself. If it were possible to sire offspring which were part human and part sheep, we would have seen them all over the place thousands and thousands of years ago.
2. Re:More Proof.. by Hyperhaplo · 2012-08-31 22:18 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for the imagery.
  My first thought was 'So thankful that humans and trees don't produce viable offspring' which lead to 'I wonder if referencing humans who mate with vegetables is appropriate here'.. leading to ..well.. 'anything'.
  
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Re:No native Australians by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-08-31 20:49 · Score: 1

and native Australians
There is no such thing
Kangaroos?

Wombats?

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Re:Is that surprising? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 23:53 · Score: 0

wow, never knew you had a sense of humor. or was that goatse approved by ron paul?
Pornosapiens by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-01 04:11 · Score: 0

Never underestimate a horny homosapiens.
Hey by WOOFYGOOFY · 2012-09-01 04:14 · Score: 1

She was a denisovan at 10 and a 10 at 2...
Re:Denisovans not in mainland Asian genes by RockDoctor · 2012-09-01 08:20 · Score: 1

More seriously, though, the H. floresiensis hobbits seem like a really obvious next set of people to do DNA analysis on - we're not sure if they're modern humans or what,
DNA, like any organic molecule, is prone to decomposition in warm and/ or wet conditions.
The Denisovan DNA was found in bones in a cave in a mountainous area of Siberia.
The "hobbits" bones were found in a low-altitude cave in the tropics.
While "hobbit" DNA would be absolutely fascinating to discover, the odds are not good.
Which doesn't stop people from looking, but they're also looking for other things at the same time.

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Re:No native Australians by RockDoctor · 2012-09-01 08:27 · Score: 1

and native Australians
There is no such thing
Kangaroos?
Wombats?
Lung fish (not to be confused with the African ones ; a very different taxon)?
And lots and lots of impressively nasty invertebrates.

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Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Yawn ... by Kaz+Kylheku · 2012-09-01 11:29 · Score: 1

This is completely useless information that only a paleontology/anthropology dweeb can regard as news to get excited about.
None of this is going to result in anything that improves human lives in any way.
With just the slightest squint of the eyes, "Neanderthal" and "Denisovan" become synonyms. Basically it's just a word game: let's arbitrarily divide the prehistoric ancestors into two groups and give them different names, and then pretend that this is important somehow.
It's all spelled out. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-02 03:53 · Score: 0

If you want to know the course of events of history in relation to the progression of the existing tribes of earth and their cross with the new strain of biological progression introduced by the spirit beings (who took on earth forms) Adam and Eve (Material Son's and Daughters), read the Urantia book.