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.
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.
she decided to marry me.
...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....
'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.
fucked up.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
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)
Ahhh, no.
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)
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)
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.
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?!
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.
those with a high amount of Neanderthal ancestry also seemed to have died without procreating.
Note sure I believe you..
In generation one, John h.sapiens and Mary h.neanderthal have a baby, that child is 50% h.neanderthal.
That 50% hybrid goes on to give birth to a baby fathered by a 100% h.sapiens, the resulting baby is 25% h.neanderthal.
Within a few generations the h.neanderthal DNA is in the single digits.
How do you come to the conclusion that humans with high percentage h.neanderthal DNA died without procreating? Because it's fairly obvious that to me that many of them did successfully procreate.
Also don't forget that until 100 years ago, high infant mortality rates were "normal", even with
Unhousebroken cretin alert.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
One of the species classifications now[*] is that Neanderthals were Homo Sapiens.
In this system, we're h.s. Sapiens, and they were h.s. Neanderthalensis.
[*]: The whole species classification system is fictional and only intended to aid human minds that wants to pigeonhole everything and create boundaries where none exist. You were the same species as your parents, who were the same species as their parents, and so on, going back millions of generations. There is no point where you can say a parent was a different species from the offspring. This means that the whole species concept is fluid and open to interpretation. There is no "archehuman" from which you can define who is the same species and who isn't.
those with a high amount of Neanderthal ancestry also seemed to have died without procreating.
But at least they were a shoo-in for Supreme Court confirmation.
Have gnu, will travel.
"The whole species classification system is fictional "
Then try to breed a walrus and a lioness and see what happens.
The fact that boundaries are blurred and more focused on synchronic than diachronic differenciation doesn't make the system fictional.
How is this news going to be received by the #metoo movement?
As an aside; how are we supposed to read that? Pound me too?
Have gnu, will travel.
Then try to breed a walrus and a lioness and see what happens.
That they cannot breed is not because they are different species, but because the genetic drift from a common ancestor has made them genetically incompatible.
There existed an animal X that was the common ancestor to both the walrus and the lioness. This is indisputable. You would not say that this ancestor is the same species as either a walrus or a lioness. On the walrus line, there is an unbroken line of descendants from X until we reach what we call a walrus. On this line, at what point was "walrus" species classification obtained? And similarly on the lioness line.
If you have three animal populations on an island, A, B and C, and A can breed with B and B can breed with C, but A cannot breed with C, how do you delineate the species?
The "ability to breed" criterion for species can only work if you can exactly define one individual archetype for that species, and define the species as all who can breed with that one particular individual. Whether they can breed with each other is then irrelevant.
In the above ABC example, if one of the Bs were defined as an archetype for species B, then all of the island would be one species. If one of the As were defined as an archetype, then all As and Bs would be the same species, but C would not. And, in fact, C could not be its own species either, because that would make the Bs part of two species.
In reality, there are only sliding degrees of differences, and species is a construct that makes it easier for us humans to classify, which we are wont to. But you can trace your lineage up to one of your ancestors without breaking a species line, and then down again to a Pan Troglodytes cousin, again without breaking a species line.
It's really a meaningless distinction. Species are a useful construct, but actual distinct populations consist of a continuum of genetic variants that shade into each other.
Saying that an individual animal is a hybrid -- particularly a hybrid of closely related species that routinely produce fertile hybrid offspring -- probably says more about our terminology than it does about that individual.
We distinguish between H sapiens and H neanderthalis (or according to some H s sapiens and H s neanderthalensis) because it's helpful in publishing papers about the fossil record.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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)
You are way over-selling this idea that "species are fictional" based solely on the the fact that there is not a sharp division (based on the possibility of reproduction)in every case of speciation. If A cannot breed with C there is absolutely no doubt that they are different species. Nothing fictional about. The existence of B that can interbreed with either does not change that at all. Suppose B did not exist (maybe it never did, or did once and died out). Are A and C now separate species (without being any different) but weren't if (or while) B existed? That would be a bizarre result.
The definition of "species" you are applying is only one of several (due to differences in biology there cannot be just one definition, what is termed "reproductively isolated sexual species" (and is a useless definition for species with asexual reproduction for example) and is an extreme case and end result of speciation. Well before that point there are different breeding populations, often due the behavioral isolation -- that is, it isn't an accident of geography, it is the populations genetics (reflected in their behavior) that are keeping them separate. This is perfectly reasonable basis for regarding them as separate species.
This is not at all unusual in science. Many (perhaps most) systems of classification of natural entities have intermediate forms that prevent sharp boundaries in every case. Cloud types for example, or mineral types, and so forth have boundary cases that resemble different categories.
Or to use another example it would be silly to claim that the concept of "French" and "Italian" as separate languages is fictional since there is a continuum of mutually intelligible local dialects stretching between France and Italy. There is a continuum of dialects but French and Italian are mutually unintelligible, and have different vocabularies and grammars (though they are related).
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
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.
> This definition is faulty, which is easily proven.
No. It's your idea that's bogus. It clearly demonstrates that the ancient Aristotle approach to defining species is horribly naieve and doesn't match up with modern ideas about inheritance.
Your kind of definition would have blacks as a separate species.
That's both stupid and terribly politically incorrect.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"That they cannot breed is not because they are different species"
You are right. It is because they cannot breed that they are different species, not the other way around.
You are right. It is because they cannot breed that they are different species, not the other way around.
No, that does not follow. There are plenty of examples of individuals that cannot breed with each other but are considered the same species. Animals that reproduce through parthenogenesis are an obvious example, as they don't have sexual reproduction, but an Irish Wolfhound and a Chihuahua are considered the same species, yet cannot breed (while coyotes and wolves are considered different species, but can).
Again, "species" is a concept we apply to "similar" forms of life, without having a firm definition or boundaries. It's for our convenience, because most humans are exceptionally bad at analogue thinking, much preferring everything to fall neatly into a small number of boxes. So we make up boxes, like "blue" or "fox" or "nut", and then later try to retrofit rules that explain the choices we made. But in the case of "species", no such rule stand up to even simple tests, and we continue to name species through fiat.
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
-- Humpty Dumpty, Lewis Carroll
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.
And humans having sex with monkeys gave us AIDs.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
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.