Slashdot Mirror
Humans Having Sex With Neanderthals Gave Us Protection Against Ancient Epidemics (sciencealert.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: A new study argues that we have Neanderthals to thank for helping us cope with the viral tides we encountered as we marched around the globe. Stanford University researchers have identified DNA sequences that evolved in our ancient cousins can produce antivirus proteins, which more than likely gave some human populations the edge they needed to survive. Roughly 1 percent of our genome's coding was written in Neanderthal populations. But this is a broad average -- many families with African ancestry have zero, for instance, while other populations boast as much as 2 percent or more. So the question is how much of this difference comes down to the random drift of DNA being passed on around the globe, and how much is due to natural selection giving those with Neanderthal genes an advantage?
To build a case one way or another, the Stanford researchers put together a list of just over 4,500 virus-interacting proteins (VIP) made by our genome. These were all matched against a database of Neanderthal DNA that could be found in modern East Asian and European human populations, providing 152 VIP genes shared by both groups of human. Interestingly, all of these VIP genes were of a variety that interacted with RNA viruses -- pathogens that include influenza A, hepatitis C, and HIV. This isn't to say these viruses were problems for ancient humans, but rather that similar RNA viruses were more than likely prevalent enough to shape our evolution. The discovery supports a view of genetic exchange described as the 'poison-antidote' model.
To build a case one way or another, the Stanford researchers put together a list of just over 4,500 virus-interacting proteins (VIP) made by our genome. These were all matched against a database of Neanderthal DNA that could be found in modern East Asian and European human populations, providing 152 VIP genes shared by both groups of human. Interestingly, all of these VIP genes were of a variety that interacted with RNA viruses -- pathogens that include influenza A, hepatitis C, and HIV. This isn't to say these viruses were problems for ancient humans, but rather that similar RNA viruses were more than likely prevalent enough to shape our evolution. The discovery supports a view of genetic exchange described as the 'poison-antidote' model.
Nah, there's no way this is going to be controversial. ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
Some homo sapiens sapiens couldn't get a date some evening, but there was always their Neanderthal friend for evenings like that
Bruce Perens.
I originally posted this, I would like to add.
I wish that this would not degrade into white/black argument. Sadly I started this with my comment. I should have added that I see this as degrading into the white genes are better, not that I believe they are. My original comment was too curt.
This is partly why nerds survived so long....
Myself included naturally.
Know anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
....it looks like the original strain came out of Africa.....then mated with neanderthals creating a stronger, smarter hybrid. They also crossed with a cousin of the Neanderthal called the Denisovans and created another hybrid that was also smarter and better than the original strain.
Fast forward a few tens of thousands of years and we call the originals "Blacks", the Neanderthal hybrid 'Whites" and the Denisovan hybrid "Asians".
It's a lot more complicated than that, of course....but it does make sense.
So that’s "safe sex."
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
If I fuck a Neanderthal, it will help give me resistance to ancient pathogens? Got it.
Lemme see... no, no, no... no, she's obviously H. Sapiens... no, not enough hair on that one, I can, like, straight up see her skin. Maybe she just shaves, but I'm not going to chance it. No. No. No... damn... a cute Neanderthal chick turns out to be hard to find on Tinder. Neanderthals DID have opposable thumbs, RIGHT? Moving on... nope, she's clearly Cro-magnon... no... no... no... (sigh).
You can all laugh now, but when global anthropogenic climate change thaws a pocket of bacteria from 150,000 years ago... ...and it starts wiping everyone out but me, it is I who will have the last laugh!
Me, and my hawt, hawt, hairy, Neanderthal girlfriend.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
she decided to marry me.
Some scientists believe that this virus, which still exists today, may have driven dinosaurs to extinction.
On the other hand it could be the evil democratic humans raping the kindly humane neaderthals. Or on the other hand it could be the evil nazi neaderthals raping the friendly humans.
Point is before we can evaluate this scientific story we need to determine which political party the Neaderthals and humans represented. Once we know the correct political affiliations we can scientifically detemermine how to evaluate the news story.
Your political party is gay, mine rocks.
Only by killing and destroying everyone who does not believe in the correct political party can we ensure people and puppies can live free in a wholesome loving society. Remeber, if someone does not agrre 100 percent with the beliefs that were given to you by the society you grew up on they are evil and must be killed. Hooray for our side. The side of justice, love, civility, and puppies. That is right. If you dont subscribe to my party and its universal truths, you want to kill puppies.
They all deserve to go to jail for raping minors.
USA needs a time machine to prosecute them.
...this is pretty interesting in that it demonstrates the value of genetic diversity in helping humans evolve survival mechanisms at the genetic level. We've long known that viral imprinting bestows resistance to certain those viruses, but zooming this out to a more macro level is very fascinating.
You may now continue with the school-yard level jokes....
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I'm staring while my coffee goes cold
Look over there (where?)
There, there's a lady that I used to know
She's married now or engaged or something, so I'm told
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
'Cause if my eyes don't deceive me, there's something going wrong around here
To keep fucking other species until we gain additional immunity from stuff! Challenge accepted!
Yes, it appears to be good for the well-being of the species that we inherently fsck anything that moves. How is this news going to be received by the #metoo movement?
https://www.job-katta.com/2018...
'Having sex' didn't give people protection, that is just poor use of language. The offspring from Interbreeding would have the benefit greater genetic diversity.
Some dude fucked your mom and gave birth to an insensitive, rude little prick.
https://www.job-katta.com/2018/10/msbte-time-table-2018-19-winter-job.html?m=1
This explains why Yanks are so obsessed with beastial cuckolding.
just sayin, it still works!
Neanderthal = Homo neanderthalensis
The "Homo" part means "human."
fucked up.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
A home sapiens guy and a neanderthal woman were spending time watching campfire and chill
Denisovans branched off from Neanderthals, so if they're not on the list, we would be able to date when the mutations arose in Neanderthals.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Get fucked
Nobody is claiming they're superior genes. They offer a different trade-off (greater cancer risk, greater autoimmune disease risk in exchange for a lower risk from a selection of viruses and bacteria).
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Nonsense. ... what a brain dead idea.
Immune system traits are not trade offs
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In fact, while what they try to say can be more or less understood, is basically flawed:
"how much of this difference comes down to the random drift of DNA being passed on around the globe, and how much is due to natural selection giving those with Neanderthal genes an advantage"
Well, exactly the same. Unless they provide a new theory of directed evolution, *all* this change comes from random drift.
The problem with our semantics is that we've all been taught that humans are homo sapiens.
The vast majority of humans (except sub-Saharan Africans) are Sapiens-Neanderthal hybrids. If you're white, you're a hybrid.
Homo Sapiens do exist (and did exist) but that's not us (unless you're a pure-blood sub-Saharan or from a few rarified lines of Pacific Islanders).
I keep finding this a weird thing to say; obviously, us and Neanderthals procreated with great success. Therefore we have been the same species, we just followed different migratory paths at different times and later merged again (probably with all kinds of conflicts because that's human nature). "Humans having sex with Neanderthals" thus makes no sense. It's as odd as saying "humans having sex with Caucasians". It makes no sense because we are are the same species. We may not all be Neanderthals like we're not all Caucasian or Asian but we probably all are Congoid. And we definitely are all humans. And so were Neanderthals. Let's stop this weird display phrenology and just call Neanderthals what they were: an interesting group of pretty plain humans.
(Or am I missing something here?)
0x or or snor perron?!
The sex didn't give them protection. It gave the offspring protection. And also, since there's noone around with a more than a single digit percentage of Neanderthal DNA, those with a high amount of Neanderthal ancestry also seemed to have died without procreating.
It has been long known that breeding (having kids) with those distantly related to you is likely to produce healthier offspring. So: if you want healthy kids: choose a partner who has a different ancestry to you -- domeone of a different race is an easy way of doing it. Having said that what I have said is simplistic, not everyone has equally ''good'' genes, so choosing someone who is: healthy, strong, intelligent, ... is also good -- these are the characteristics that many find attractive anyway. The mating game is largely about producing healthy kids - even if we do not realise it.
Now we all know why the Europeans have such buck Neanderthal teeth.
If we're descended from Neanderthals why would we need to breed with them to gain their genes?
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Took the rest of the world combined to beat 'em.
Humans are, collectively, Captain Jack Harkness!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Wait... you actually think it was Germany vs. the world? I think you may be missing a dozen or so nations.
Nonsense. ... what a brain dead idea.
Immune system traits are not trade offs
TANSTAAFL applies to evolution too, and even more so than most other situations.
We only have around 30,000 genes, which are largely multi-purpose and used in combination with other genes.
Because the gene itself has multiple effects, any genetic mutation is also likely to have more than one effect. Given that any change is far more likely to be for the worse than for the better, this means that any good change is often linked with one or more bad changes too. For the mutation to survive and propagate, the good change has to outweigh the bad change in that particular environment.
The most commonly cited mutation that has multiple effects, both good and bad, is sickle cell anaemia, where an affected individual also has high resistance to malaria. That trade-off is why sickle cell anaemia has not been either bred out or become ubiquitous.
There are others, like the HLA-B27 antigen which not only drives up the risk of conditions like Ankylosing Spondylitis, but also increases the resistance to influenza type A, and has a small but significant correlation with slower progression of HIV.
At some point in the past, the tradeoffs must have been good for the population where this antigen is most prevalent.
It isn't necessary to say "Having Sex With" when what you really mean is "mating with", which is actually much more accurate.
How good the sex was isn't what matters here, it's about actually reproducing and raising kids successfully.
Is it racist to say that being a hybrid gave "those with Neanderthal genes an advantage", and then say that many Africans have no Neanderthal DNA? Do people read what what they write?
What do you mean no? Many gays say that they were born that way. If you're suggesting be that we don't exchanged DNA with viruses, then I'm guessing you're not into a science.
Actually the writer said just the opposite of that you claim. The article said sex gave "those with Neanderthal genes an advantage". Why not debate the topic instead of changing the topic.
Not exactly brain surgery is it?
Can't be. Otherwise they are the ones who would have been named Homo Erectus.
After a year and a half of being single again, a little Neanderthal love would be fine. #Willing.
I'm sure it wasn't consensual. Neanderthals had sex with anything that moved.
Of course we exchange DNA with viruses. That's how mammals acquired the placenta.
Yes, sexual orientation is something you're born with. It's acquired via hormones and other chemical signals at around 6 months into the pregnancy. Nothing to do with viruses.
How do we know this? Viruses are species-specific. Homosexuality exists in all mammals at around the same percentage (and some fish, reptiles and birds). Obviously, you want a cause that applies to all mammals (since that has to be a common mechanism) and ideally applies to a much broader portion of the entire animal kingdom.
A virus can't do this. A mechanism for modifying the brain as it forms - that can. Since we've actually studied the brain as it forms (it's an offshoot of the human connectome project), we know quite a bit about such mechanisms.
Sorry, that's how it is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It also unfortunately produced the likes of APK.
The only one worth mentioning was Japan and it was on the other side of the planet entirely. It didn't get nearly as much "attention" as Germany did.
Mussolini was pretty much Hilter's mascot.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you can't survive the HIV epidemic you won't have to worry about cancer. The advantage here is clear. If you can survive long enough to breed and have viable offspring, that's all that really matters.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> There's no such thing as "white genes"
This article is pretty much a solid counterargument against that.
There are in fact genes that are associated with various racial and ethnic populations. They give rise to genetic diseases associated with various races and ethnicities. They also limit who you can get an organ or bone marrow translplant from.
A little bit of spit can tell us EXACTLY what your racial and ethnic makeup is.
Value judgements are another matter entirely.
"white genes" are very real.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Please enlighten us and tell us what they are, because to my memory there are only genes associated with certain populations, which do not divide simply into convenient "ethnic" or "racial" groups.
Naw man, he f*cked her so hard that she and her baby both ended up immune to the plague!
p.s. Obligatory "Now that's f*cking retarded."
I momentarily read the article title as, "Humans Having Sex With Neanderthals Gave Us Protection Against Ancient Academics". This is plausible on so many levels that I rather think someone should write that article.
Matters if the children survive to breed as well, which means having parents, family or at least the tribe being able to raise the children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Can't tell if you're trying to be funny, but if not, allergies and type 1 diabetes say you're wrong. Google for autoimmune disorders to start learning about more.
And humans having sex with monkeys gave us AIDs.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Intelligence to an extent trumps allergies and type 1 diabetes, though. If you have intelligence, like modern humans do, you can learn to avoid allergens and invent insulin pumps.
Ezekiel 23:20
SEX GOOD!
allergies and type 1 diabetes are defects in the immune system. With some severe enough to be bred out of the species quite quickly in general, or at least continue to be a relatively minor issue.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"Honey, I had to mate with that Neanderthal, it's for the genes, I swear! We have to save our children! It meant nothing to me!"