20% of Neanderthal Genome Survives In Humans

vinces99 writes "A substantial fraction of the Neanderthal genome persists in modern human populations. A new analysis (abstract) of 665 people from Europe and East Asia shows that more than 20 percent of the Neanderthal genome survives in the DNA of this contemporary group, whose genetic information is part of the 1,000 Genomes Project." Another study published today (abstract) finds that Neanderthal genes are present in some parts of our genome that we've found to be important. Some of the genes influence fertility and skin pigment, and others actually increase our susceptibility to diseases like diabetes and lupus. The researchers are now taking these known genetic markers and seeing if they correlate with any other health conditions.

Comments

Re:Not found in "humans" in general

[smellsofbikes]

Lactose intolerance is complex. The Tuareg of Saharan Africa have lower lactose intolerance rates than Finnish people, for instance. It mostly has to do with whether a group has spent a long time as nomadic herders or not, and adult persistence of lactase activity appears to be caused by several different mutations, that arose spontaneously. http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthr... has a nice list of adult lactase activity in different ethnic groups.

Hoo boy, scientific racism again.

[Valdrax]

For instance an average European has an average IQ of 105 compared to 70 in Africa. Though, the higher IQ is likely due to divergent racial evolution that occured well after the insertion of neanderthal genes...

Or it could be a matter of education, relative stress in childhood, and diet. Or it could be a matter of a cultural upbringing that doesn't value and train people in the types of reasoning favored by IQ tests. I'd like to see a test cataloging our relative abilities to navigate vast terrain, to remember and recite oral histories, to perform pattern recognition based on ability to identify wild plants, or just a simple ability to navigate complex social situations, for example. Or it could be a function of languages, since we already know that languages can affect things like the ability to recognize and categorize colors.

Have you ever read letters from American Civil War soldiers to their families back home? We're not talking a college education demographic by a long shot, but the eloquence and care of language in these letters is often breathtaking. Are we "dumber" than them as a populace for not being able to write like an average farm boy could 150 years ago? Or are we just trained for different uses of our brains.

IQ is a crappy measure of genetic superiority, because it fails to account for environment & upbringing, and it's heavily biased towards one particular culture's most valued intelligence traits.