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AI Study of Human Genome Finds Unknown Human Ancestor (smithsonianmag.com)
Zorro shares a report from the Smithsonian: A recent study used machine learning technology to analyze eight leading models of human origins and evolution, and the program identified evidence in the human genome of a "ghost population" of human ancestors. The analysis suggests that a previously unknown and long-extinct group of hominins interbred with Homo sapiens in Asia and Oceania somewhere along the long, winding road of human evolutionary history, leaving behind only fragmented traces in modern human DNA. The study, published in Nature Communications, is one of the first examples of how machine learning can help reveal clues to our own origins. By poring through vast amounts of genomic data left behind in fossilized bones and comparing it with DNA in modern humans, scientists can begin to fill in some of the many gaps of our species' evolutionary history. "The new data suggest that the mysterious hominin was likely descended from an admixture of Neanderthals and Denisovans (who were only identified as a unique species on the human family tree in 2010)," the report adds. "Such a species in our evolutionary past would look a lot like the fossil of a 90,000-year-old teenage girl from Siberia's Denisova cave. Her remains were described last summer as the only known example of a first-generation hybrid between the two species, with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father."
Sub-species. The biological definition of species is the ability to form fertile offspring. For example all dogs and wolves are the same species as they can all form fertile offspring. Horses and donkeys are a different species as the result is the mule, which is sterile. Talking about different human "species" interbreeding is wrong.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yet the only ones to explore the outer reaches of the solar system, walk on the moon, and when you get right down to it; did a lot to make this planet a genuinely comfortable place to call home, and not the feral hellhole that wants to kill you at every turn that it used to be.
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The commentator above is correct; scientists define a group as a separate species only if it can't interbreed with other closely related groups.
Leave it to the lawyers to muddy the waters. The misnamed Endangered Species Act apparently defined a species as any separate breeding population (the Florida panthers, for example) in order to "extend the reach" of the law well beyond merely protecting endangered species. This is the usual example of lawyers and legislators using the law to try to redefine words for public relations purposes. The result is that the public- and the lawyers- now don't know what a species is. This is the left wing version of the unborn child gambit on the right.
Personally, I think Neanderthal girls are hot. I keep hoping to meet one at the beach. They're really good at beach volleyball. Do Neanderthals girls qualify for NCAA athletic scholarships?