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Oldest Human DNA Contains Clues To Mysterious Species
sciencehabit writes "Analysis of the oldest known genetic material ever to be recovered from an early human reveals an unexpected chapter in the story of human evolution. Researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the femur of a 400,000-year-old hominin found in the Sima de los Huesos ('pit of bones'), an underground cave in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain. Because the early hominins looked a little like Neanderthals, researchers expected their mitochondrial DNA to share a common ancestor. However, mitochondrial DNA from the Spanish hominin was found to share a common ancestor with an enigmatic eastern Eurasian sister group to the Neanderthals, the Denisovans."
OK, OK, still better than Kardashians, I guess.
1. They had problems with modern human DNA contamination (not sure why they couldn't get everything clean but since they're the leading edge lab in this sort of thing, it must be a real issue).
2. They had to limit analysis to fragment lengths around 45 base pairs to avoid this contamination. That's tiny compared to what one normally uses.
3. They only had enough to sequence the mitochondrial DNA.
4. It's only one person.
So, it's confusing but it seems from the outside to be due to a limited data set. Now, this sort of thing is at the limit of our current technology and the lab is working to replicate and amplify the data (and work on the somatic genome). So stay confused and stay tuned.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
film at 11...
sounds like this "journalist" never even heard of Denisovans before now. So what exactly is the "clues" that have been gained?
"400,000-year-old hominin"
I thought they were hominids
That's from the maternal line. It's the DNA that's directly passed down only from the mother. Just because no maternal Neanderthals DNA is present doesn't mean there isn't Neanderthals DNA present from Neanderthal fathers. I'm not arguing that this is the answer, only that the findings above don't prohibit this from being true.
Besides, we all know those Neanderthals mean were the one's hitting our ancestral women on the heads, dragging them back their caves, and spreading their DNA. :P
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
"underground cave" is there another kind?
That was me. Please give me your address so I can pick up the turd.
We all know aliens have a problem with abducting and then "probing" farm animals and humans - we probably inherited some of that behavior from them... (some of us more than others.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
They could have taken many samples of this one person to verify it's actually the true RNA. Given enough samples, you'd statistically eliminate the deterioration and contamination of individual samples quite drastically. You most certainly wouldn't be able to come up with the definitive complete RNA or DNA of this person, but the margin for error would be so low that even the most sceptical peer reviewer would be convinced.
Contamination would most likely be limited to recent events. Ancient people peeing in the corner would have left a little DNA/RNA, but that would be limited to single cells on or near the surface, not being protected by bone structure or surrounding cells. The chance of that DNA/RNA surviving is way lower than the DNA/RNA inside the bones, so most likely, we're only dealing with the handling of the bones since the 1980s.
Yes, this one person could still be a freak occurrence. However, if you were to see that as a valid argument, our entire theory of the origin of modern humans is based on a few freak occurrences we just happen to have found scattered around the planet.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It makes me wonder how the Jomon and associated cultures fit in the picture.
... not "pit of bones".
"el"/"la"/"los"/"las" == "the".
Omitting it in English when there is a "el/la/los/las" in Spanish is not optional. Don't do it.
Adding a "el/la/los/las" in Spanish when there is no "the" in English is wrong aswell.
In lots of American movies and TV shows I see this mistake over and over.
i.e. In a Simpons episode we see the Bumblebee Man with a paper that says "El Divorcio". Why adding "El" here?. It's just "Divorcio".
You probably see the article added to every word in Spanish class, but that's just so you can learn the word genre (masculine/femenine) and so you can use the correct article _if_ needed. Stop this nonsense please.
Humans have always shagged anything that was on two legs. Its not surprising that there's a lot of cross-sharing of DNA material between the various Homo branches. Its just that thanks to our superior societal norms, that we're more uptight about the fact than Bonobono chimps are......
Thank God for that?
Hmmmm....
Look at that. An actual example of begging the question.
It's generally accepted that human beings (homo sapiens) are no more than 200,000 years old. So unless the researchers are proposing their data shows that humans are a lot older than originally thought, the title and summary are flawed. Not that the research isn't interesting, but one would hope that scientists would know the difference between the species involved and not misinform the public.
Livid evil elvis genetic lost twin.
people that resort to rules based argumentation tend to rely on not getting punched in the face.
And yet your offtopic post was modded informative. Jesus H. Christ, what has happened to slashdot? Idiotic offtopic comments like yours being posted, and worse, idiot moderators modding them up. How much offtopic shit will I have to wade through to reach the actual topic today?
As to the actual topic, human? We were human 100000 years ago? Weren't we human-LIKE way back then? I mean, denisovians and Neanderthals weren't human, were they?
let's do this more...
if we must suffer AC trolls getting 'firsties' we can at least make lemons into lemonade & collectively mock all AC's...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Stop it right now. You are making me homorny!
Sometimes coffee tastes muddy if it is overground and the smaller particles make it through the filter
I prefer underground coffee where the grinds are fairly large chunks
If I understand the subject correctly: Humans, yes; homo sapiens, no.
That is, 'human' encapsulates more than just us modern homo sapiens, and includes other species of the genus homo, such as homo neanderthalensis (or sub-species homo sapiens neanderthalensis, depending on where you're reading).
They look so kind! But, let us pray WWF and Greepeace doesn't get too involved in this. Or, in other words, How un-pc can this untangling get?
The World Wrestling Federation and Greenpeace? Seems an unlikely combination but could be interesting ...
We were human 100000 years ago? Weren't we human-LIKE way back then? I mean, denisovians and Neanderthals weren't human, were they?
Well, if you're talking about the conventional usage of "human" in scientific circles, the answer is: Yes, they were; they just weren't modern humans.
But "human" really isn't a technical term; For that you want something like "Homo" or "hominin", depending on how far back in the tree you want to describe. The term "human" is used informally to mean just about any critters later than the split from the Pan (chimpanzee) branch. It's used when you don't want to be too precise about such things.
OTOH, "human" is widely used in common speech to refer to anyone "not like us". Sometimes it means "white people", especially in writings from before the 20th century. But you don't much hear such usages in scientific settings. You do see it a lot in media coverage of science, but then it means whatever the journalist thinks it means.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
*runs*
It's used when you don't want to be too precise about such things.
It's used when you want to read more into something than you should (hint: there is only 1 kind of human, there is no "modern" vs "early" human) specifically for purposes of spreading doubt about Creation and facts (but not evidence) that attempt to explain a theory that has yet to take shape. There, I corrected that for you.
Researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the femur of a 400,000-year-old hominin
By the way, did anyone verify the measuring "stick" used to verify the 400,000 year age of this bone to ensure the measuring "stick" was itself accurate? I didn't think so. Carry on with your delusions and your faith in something that can't be proven by the best scientists that mankind can offer.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address