The Daily Telegraph broke the 2pm ET embargo on the Science research article, naughty Brits!
Apparently not as naughty as our 'modern' human ancestors, who engaged in "wayward behavior" as they encountered Neanderthals 100,000-50,000 years ago as they were expanding out of Africa into the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As usual, the mass media coverage isn't entirely accurate.
"It more or less settles a long-standing academic debate over interbreeding between separate branches of the human family tree." There's no more or less about it. The modern human origins debate is the longest-standing and one of the most hotly contested in physical anthropology, which among other topics, is the study of human evolution. Essentially, since the late 80s, most researchers have been proponents of the African replacement model, which predicted no gene flow between our ancestors and more 'archaic' forms of humans like Neanderthals. This model is now clearly false. The alternate, Multiregionalism, predicted gene flow between more modern looking humans and Neanderthals when they encountered each other.
"Technically the Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were a human sub-species." No. Technically, Homo neanderthalensis means Neanderthals were a different species of human than living people. There is no definition of a species that still supports this view. Neanderthals are no more a sub-species of human than are living Asians, Australians, Native Americans, or Europeans.
"Such a faint genetic signature suggests only a small amount of interbreeding." ...yes, and I bet they all regretted it the morning after, too. The research article concludes that between 1% and 4% of living Eurasians' genomes are of Neanderthal ancestry. If you work out the population genetics, that means anything good (adaptive) in the Neanderthal genome made its way into the genomes of living non-African people. (The bad stuff would have been eliminated by selection in the last 50,000 years.) We do not yet know what any of those adaptive genes might be, though.
"The analysis highlighted certain parts of the Neanderthal genome which resembled those of chimpanzees more than modern humans." ...the analysis also highlighted that certain parts of the genomes of living Eurasians, as well as many Africans, are more like the genome of the Neanderthals than they are like the living San, the Bushmen of southern Africa. I suspect the media will not be mentioning this - after all, the San are still alive (unlike the Neanderthals), and they might not appreciate being compared to chimpanzees. Or that interbreeding between San and the rest of us is "wayward behavior." (You might remember the San from The Gods Must Be Crazy.)
As I said, the research article will be available from Science later today so those of you on college campuses will be able to read it yourselves if you're so inclined. Maybe it'll be open access for all to read, but I doubt it.
No, there will not be a cloned Neanderthal. It's not ethical to clone living people, and since Neanderthals are clearly people, it wouldn't be ethical to clone them, either. That said, if just 1% of the Eurasian genome is from Neanderthals, and there are 5,000,000,000 Eurasians, well, then that means there are 50,000,000 Neanderthals still alive. Cue the jokes...
Apparently not as naughty as our 'modern' human ancestors, who engaged in "wayward behavior" as they encountered Neanderthals 100,000-50,000 years ago as they were expanding out of Africa into the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As usual, the mass media coverage isn't entirely accurate.
"It more or less settles a long-standing academic debate over interbreeding between separate branches of the human family tree." There's no more or less about it. The modern human origins debate is the longest-standing and one of the most hotly contested in physical anthropology, which among other topics, is the study of human evolution. Essentially, since the late 80s, most researchers have been proponents of the African replacement model, which predicted no gene flow between our ancestors and more 'archaic' forms of humans like Neanderthals. This model is now clearly false. The alternate, Multiregionalism, predicted gene flow between more modern looking humans and Neanderthals when they encountered each other.
"Technically the Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were a human sub-species." No. Technically, Homo neanderthalensis means Neanderthals were a different species of human than living people. There is no definition of a species that still supports this view. Neanderthals are no more a sub-species of human than are living Asians, Australians, Native Americans, or Europeans.
"Such a faint genetic signature suggests only a small amount of interbreeding." ...yes, and I bet they all regretted it the morning after, too. The research article concludes that between 1% and 4% of living Eurasians' genomes are of Neanderthal ancestry. If you work out the population genetics, that means anything good (adaptive) in the Neanderthal genome made its way into the genomes of living non-African people. (The bad stuff would have been eliminated by selection in the last 50,000 years.) We do not yet know what any of those adaptive genes might be, though.
"The analysis highlighted certain parts of the Neanderthal genome which resembled those of chimpanzees more than modern humans." ...the analysis also highlighted that certain parts of the genomes of living Eurasians, as well as many Africans, are more like the genome of the Neanderthals than they are like the living San, the Bushmen of southern Africa. I suspect the media will not be mentioning this - after all, the San are still alive (unlike the Neanderthals), and they might not appreciate being compared to chimpanzees. Or that interbreeding between San and the rest of us is "wayward behavior." (You might remember the San from The Gods Must Be Crazy.)
As I said, the research article will be available from Science later today so those of you on college campuses will be able to read it yourselves if you're so inclined. Maybe it'll be open access for all to read, but I doubt it.
No, there will not be a cloned Neanderthal. It's not ethical to clone living people, and since Neanderthals are clearly people, it wouldn't be ethical to clone them, either. That said, if just 1% of the Eurasian genome is from Neanderthals, and there are 5,000,000,000 Eurasians, well, then that means there are 50,000,000 Neanderthals still alive. Cue the jokes...