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DNA Analysis Suggests Humans Interbred With Denisovans
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.
Do you think the one on the bottom is being legitimately raped or does it have ways of shutting the whole thing down?
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.