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Our Hidden Neanderthal DNA May Increase Risk of Allergies, Depression (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Depressed? Your inner Neanderthal may be to blame. Modern humans met and mated with these archaic people in Europe or Asia about 50,000 years ago, and researchers have long suspected that genes picked up in these trysts might be shaping health and well-being today. Now, a study in the current issue of Science details their impact. It uses a powerful new method for scanning the electronic health records of 28,000 Americans to show that some Neanderthal gene variants today can raise the risk of depression, skin lesions, blood clots, and other disorders.

2 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Neandertal, not Neanderthal by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes "h" please.

    It's not a mistake. The word was coined before the spelling of "thal" (valley) was changed to "tal."

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  2. Re:Neandertal, not Neanderthal by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Informative

    The H is indeed a mistake. The link states clearly that the word originates from the German place Neandertal.

    No, it doesn't. The link states that "Tal" used to be spelled "Thal" before the modern German spelling reform, which happened roughly 100 years ago. Since the word was coined in the mid-1800s, it originally had "Thal" in German too.

    This got corrupted when used in English long ago and the H was added. The result is eternal confusion about the spelling.

    No -- the English used the proper German spelling at the time the word entered English. Then the Germans decided to change their spelling of the word.

    Additionally, the German word (with or without "h") was ALWAYS pronounced "tal," as most cases of "th" are in German. (See English words like "Thomas" pronounced "tomas" as well.)