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Neanderthal Ancestors May Be To Blame For Why You Can't Get a Tan (telegraph.co.uk)
turkeydance shares a report from The Telegraph: If you struggle to get a tan, consider yourself a night owl or are plagued with arthritis, then your Neanderthal ancestors could be to blame, a new genetic study has shown. Although Neanderthals are often portrayed in drawings as swarthy, in fact they arrived in Northern Europe thousands of years before modern humans, giving time for their skin to become paler as their bodies struggled to soak up enough sun. When they interbred with modern humans those pale genes were passed on. Likewise, genetic mutations which predispose people to arthritis also came from our Neanderthal ancestors, as did the propensity to be a night owl rather than a lark, as northern latitudes altered their body clocks. A raft of new papers published in the journals Science and the American Journal of Human Genetics has shed light on just how many traits we owe to our Neanderthal ancestors.
Scientists also now think that differences in hair color, mood and whether someone will smoke or have an eating disorder could all be related to inter-breeding, after comparing ancient DNA to 112,000 British people who took part in the UK Biobank study. The Biobank includes genetic data along with information on many traits related to physical appearance, diet, sun exposure, behavior, and disease and helps scientists pick apart which traits came from Neanderthals. Dr Janet Kelso, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, said: "We can now show that it is skin tone, and the ease with which one tans, as well as hair color that are affected."
Scientists also now think that differences in hair color, mood and whether someone will smoke or have an eating disorder could all be related to inter-breeding, after comparing ancient DNA to 112,000 British people who took part in the UK Biobank study. The Biobank includes genetic data along with information on many traits related to physical appearance, diet, sun exposure, behavior, and disease and helps scientists pick apart which traits came from Neanderthals. Dr Janet Kelso, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, said: "We can now show that it is skin tone, and the ease with which one tans, as well as hair color that are affected."
If you struggle to get a tan, consider yourself a night owl or are plagued with arthritis
Stop spying on me, NSA!
Ezekiel 23:20
The article indicates that early humans developed strategies to avoid interbreeding, recognizing that there were dangers associated with doing so. Although many people consider religion ridiculous now, it may have provided a survival advantage at one time, promoting an orderly society. It seems like the attempts to avoid interbreeding may have also conferred a survival advantage, and that trait may persist to this day as racism and avoiding diversity. It makes me wonder if racism, awful as it is, may have once provided a very real survival advantage to early humans.
They ask you to sign up for a free account for full text, so you have to jump through one small hoop, but to describe it as "paywalled" and "not for the public" is simply false.
Depends on your email address. What is it?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The more study results I see on /. the more I come under the opinion that studies aren't real science. Rather they're a means to prove a point using whatever means possible.
Bioinformatics and genetic data mining is absolutely at the forefront of computer science research today. Nothing is more appropriate as "geek news".
jcr snorted:
This is nothing even close to /. material.
Oh really?
a. /. supposedly is "News for nerds."
b. I'm an unashamed nerd. I'm also a night owl, I burn, rather than tan, and I suffer from "moderate" osteoarthritis. And I'm of northern European extraction (Irish, Welsh, and Prussian to be precise). For all those reasons, this interests me.
I'll bet you a shiny, new quarter I'm not alone, either ...
Check out my novel.
No-tan-at-all
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
That may be true, but you don't hear about many Neanderthal women getting into programming, so clearly we should be talking about the gender gap instead.
Though come to think of it, I'm not seeing any Neanderthal men either, so it must be a full blown racial issue!
that's Sin/Cos isn't it ?
I didn't know neanderthals had worked out trigonometry
You have to be African for that.
White people are a100% human. Black people are a 100% human as are all other groups of people. All people should be treated fairly and be given a chance to develop their talents. It is morally wrong to deny any person a decent life or a chance for a decent life because of notions of racial classifications. In same way it is wrong to deny either sex an equal chance. Even more importantly it is stupid.
2.5% Neanderthal, and about 80% European. I tan just fine.
Just do it like the Neanderthal-in-Chief and use Tan-in-Bottle.
Genetics isn't a nerdy science topic? The fuck are you smoking today and may I have some?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the world is African. You seem to be ashamed of your African roots.
Neanderthals won their Darwin award already, and never did form complex civilization. Join them if you wish.,
Travel much? There is no corner of the planet without advanced civilization. Nor is there any culture entirely lacking merit. You might enjoy investigating this truth. I surely have.
It should be noted that the bloodiest wars in history have happened in "places with Neanderthal DNA". There is no race that is innocent.
Fact is, all our civilizations/cultures are works in progress, and it seems to me that working to improve the society you are immersed in is more productive than trying to point out the failings of those of which you are _clearly_ ignorant.
Do you know any red heads?
Some of them do not tan; they just burn.
I got bad hair from my mom. I stink cuz of my grandpa. I have bunions cuz of my great-grandmothers mail man. I highly doubt anyhow that its only because of neaderthal's as almost any creature that can live a long time gets ware and tear.. as in arthritis.
-Arzaboa
--
"Respect your Elders!" -- Grandpa.
yea, living in the gravelpits of flanders, hellgium probably the part where they collaborated most during the actual was (which was lost btw ... Hitler is not alive ,and actually without the other three he would have been like never anything but the corporal who could but that aside i often wonder)
why are these couch nazis so bent on beach vacations and getting a tan ? i mean whitepower and shit, right?
makes as much sense as the hackers-on-meth doing abortion clinics i mean do you think baby-hitler wouldnt have wanted abortions to keep eugenics on top ?
not that the leftists make any more sense
actually not that any -ist makes any sense to me, all i hear is ME ME ME, and you cant speak !
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
It doesn't matter what color a person's skin is, "rich privilege" wins out. People who end up with money love to pretend that it's natural for them to have it.
Who the hell is that? Everyone I know that is rich knows it's not natural. They won the lottery of life. If they have kids it can all be gone in less than a year. Even if it's hundreds of millions. It's also very hard to keep it. Everyone wants to part you from your money.
Just as the poor are poor for a reason. There will always be poor. They can't handle money. If you work with them, that becomes clear fast. So stealing it from the rich doesn't help.
Not just KKK members. Antifa, democrats, etc. Anyone on the left. Any of the fascists. That was the whole joke in Charlottesville. We had the KKK and Antifa - both leftists, both democrats and they were fighting each other. Both are racists and they were complaining about old racists. For those of us on the right we're like - yea? Can't we just sit back and watch you bigots kill each other?
Do you want to have a fuck with "jcr", or you want to smoke the come after the fuck? Won't it make your papers wet and sticky and hard to light?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
(snicker snicker)