Neanderthals wouldn't have eaten their sprouts either

PhysOrg ^ | August 12th, 2009 | Denholm Barnetson

[SunkenCiv]

Spanish researchers say they have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago... The scientists made the discovery after recovering and sequencing a fragment of the TAS2R38 gene taken from 48,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found at a site in El Sidron, in northern Spain, they said in a report released Wednesday by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)... Substances similar to PTC give a bitter taste to green vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage as well as some fruits. But they are also present in some poisonous plants, so having a distaste for it makes evolutionary sense... What intrigued the researchers most is that Neanderthals also possessed a recessive variant of the TAS2R38 gene which made some of them unable to taste PTC -- an inability they share with around one third of modern humans... Excavations since 2000 at the site at El Sidron, in the Asturias region, have so far recovered the skeletal remains of at least 10 Neanderthal individuals.

[SunkenCiv]

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
in local libraries

Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]

[SunkenCiv]

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[Bryanw92]

There’s a gene that makes me hate the taste of brussel sprouts? Cool!

[curmudgeonII]

Wonder if this is the same stuff that gives green peppers such a foul taste [at least to me and my kids]?

[djf]

Been some other studies I saw that basically said due to the cold climes, the huge energy demands of living a primarily hunting/stalking/tracking lifestyle, the neandertals generally ate somewhere between 7-10 thousand calories a day.

That means meat. Lots of meat!!

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Could you repeat that? I couldn’t hear you over the meat sizzling on the grill. ;’)

[wendy1946]

The original diet of modern humans, as per Elaine Morgan, was probably some combination of fruit and shellfish. The original diet of Neanderthals was probably banannas and colobus monkeys as is still the case with chimpanzees.

[SunkenCiv]

Probably not, they’re not related. :’) Green (sweet bell) peppers are not yet ripe; red bell peppers are ripe. Green ones are much better after they’ve cooked (not unlike onions, they sweeten up). I’ll eat green peppers in stuff, or as the container for stuffed peppers, but while I like their look, I don’t care for them too much. :’)

[OldSpice]

Neanderthals Didn’t Mate With Modern Humans, Study Says

August 12, 2008

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080812-neandertal-dna.html

The research further suggests that small population numbers helped do in our closest relatives.

Researchers sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome—genetic information passed down from mothers—of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal thighbone found in a cave in Croatia. (Get the basics on genetics.)

The new sequence contains 16,565 DNA bases, or “letters,” representing 13 genes, making it the longest stretch of Neanderthal DNA ever examined.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is easier to isolate from ancient bones than conventional or “nuclear” DNA—which is contained in cell nuclei—because there are many mitochondria per cell.

“Also, the mtDNA genome is much smaller than the nuclear genome,” said study author Richard Green of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany.

“That’s what let us finish this genome well before we finish the nuclear genome,” he said.

The new findings are detailed in the August 8 issue of the journal Cell.

EXCERPTED.

[billorites]

Gee, I dunno...
Guess I'll go with the monkey.

[djf]

Peppers consistently show up on lists of the worlds most nutritious foods.

http://www.brighthub.com/health/diet-nutrition/articles/42835.aspx

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

“Neanderthals Didn’t Mate With Modern Humans, Study Says”

Please explain Howard Dean.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s obviously false, because regardless of where they are now cultivated, bananas are “native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia. Bananas are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea.” Neandertal ate shellfish, seals, dolphins, in addition to mammoths and pretty much anything available to hunt. That list isn’t known to include colobus monkeys, which are native to parts of eastern Africa, and are unknown in Europe (including AFAI’ve ever seen, the fossil record in Europe), which comprises most of the known range of the Neandertal.

Neandertals were NOT misbegotten chimps.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s nothing about just one sample, taken from one individual, of mtDNA, that could possibly reveal anything about whether Neandertal and so-called modern humans mated.

[SunkenCiv]

D*mn those nutritionist busybodies!

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

A freind of mine slices them into wedges, puts chesse on it and puts it on the gill until the chesse melts. yum

[OldSpice]

Molecular analysis of Neanderthal DNA from the northern Caucasus

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Goodwin_00.html

“The expansion of premodern humans into western and eastern Europe 40,000 years before the present led to the eventual replacement of the Neanderthals by modern humans 28,000 years ago. Here we report the second mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of a Neanderthal, and the first such analysis on clearly dated Neanderthal remains. The specimen is from one of the eastern-most Neanderthal populations, recovered from Mezmaiskaya Cave in the northern Caucasus. Radiocarbon dating estimated the specimen to be 29,000 years old and therefore from one of the latest living Neanderthals. The sequence shows 3.48% divergence from the Feldhofer Neanderthal. Phylogenetic analysis places the two Neanderthals from the Caucasus and western Germany together in a clade that is distinct from modern humans, suggesting that their mtDNA types have not contributed to the modern human mtDNA pool. Comparison with modern populations provides no evidence for the multiregional hypothesis of modern human evolution.”

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

[djf]

Those guys ain’t true cavemen!!!
They’re mesozoic metrosexuals!!

Freakin whining all the time...

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Green Peppers are Evil.

Actually it is the iron that tastes so bad.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have to disagree with you.

Green bells are not unrippened red bells but their own type of pepper.

I have five types, (green, red, yellow, orange and blush) growing in my garden.

[wildbill]

Not sure how this thread morphed from Brussel Sprouts to peppers.

Note that the hot varieties of peppers grow in the hottest countries where they are often used in cooking to disguise the smell and taste of spoiled foods like meats.

How would peppers know to grow and evolve in hot tropical countries to help the inhabitants? Another great mystery of life.

[wendy1946]

I’d view the Neanderthal as a very advanced extinct ape, the most advanced member of the same family as chimps and gorillas. We are totally unrelated to any of them other than for the remote possibility that we might have been genetically re-engineered somehow or other from one of them. That’s at least possible, if highly unlikely.

[KarlInOhio]

Strange. I think Brussel Sprouts are some of the natiest "food" known to man. I don't think I've had any since I've moved out of my parents' house. But the article stated that the dislike of sprouts is connected to sensitivity to PTC and I remember when my high school biology teacher did a demonstration with everyone in the class to see who could taste a bitter chemical. I couldn't taste it. I think the chemical was PTC. Maybe I don't hate the bitterness of sprouts, but being unable to taste the bitterness leaves me tasting its underlying nastiness.

[PIF]

dolphins?

You mean there is evidence that they built sea-going boats fast enough to hunt them? Like to see that...

[rightly_dividing]

Substances similar to PTC give a bitter taste to green vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage

If Neandertal had lived in the South, he would have known that a stick of butter or pork seasoning will fix many nasty veggies.

[ccmay]

Brussels sprouts, ewww! I’d rather eat dirt, so I guess I’m one of the people who can taste this chemical. I remember my mom serving them up for the first time ever and wondering how human beings could eat such foul-tasting weeds, but I guess she and my dad were non-tasters.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Not sure how this thread morphed from Brussel Sprouts to peppers.

Maybe because Brussel Sprouts are incidental to the story. Brussel Sprouts have only been around for the last thousand years so Neanderthals wouldn't have been able to eat them. :)

[curmudgeonII]

Probably not, they’re not related. :’) Green (sweet bell) peppers are not yet ripe; red bell peppers are ripe. Green ones are much better after they’ve cooked (not unlike onions, they sweeten up). I’ll eat green peppers in stuff, or as the container for stuffed peppers, but while I like their look, I don’t care for them too much. :’)

Letting some of my chemistry be of some use I have found that they are not so horrendous after cooking [but are still inedible] and that I can eat around them - the stuffing in bell peppers for example - without a problem. So whatever it is is both somewhat heat labile and insoluble.

[ElkGroveDan]

It would be interesting to learn if this gene is found in humans of non-European/Middle-Eastern descent, particularly Southern African populations.

[ElkGroveDan]

The original diet of Neanderthals was probably banannas and colobus monkeys as is still the case with chimpanzees.

I find that hard to believe seeing as how the big hairy Neanderthals lived and evolved in cold environs bereft of bananas and monkeys.

[wildbill]

Where did Brussel Sprouts come from?

Was this a horrible mutation from cabbage?

[coconutt2000]

So Bitter Not Even A Cave Would Eat It.

[SunkenCiv]

The dolphin bones with butchering marks were found in Neandertal rubbish pits, along with seal bones similarly marked.

[PIF]

OK. But how did they get the animal? Did they catch it or was it washed up on a beach? How often did this occur? Was it a one time event or a regular occurrence?

[SunkenCiv]

No one knows (at this time); whatever they used may not have survived all this time. Seals could have been speared on the beach. Dolphins would require hook/line, nets, or boats and spears. Could also be the general friendliness of the dolphin was exploited, in which case any hand-held blade might have done the trick.

[PIF]

“No one knows...”

From where I stand watching N theories come and go over some 60 years, I think we’ve got the Ns all wrong. But what “right” is, I don’t know - just that what we have now is not BS, but something like that.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Sort of.

Actually Brussels Sprouts, broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, bok choy, and cauliflower are all descendants of the wild mustard plant. And wild mustard is something that the Neanderthals probably ate.

(And yes I am a plant geek)

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Isn’t cabbage in that wild mustard group? Not to mention cultivated mustard.

[wildbill]

How unfortunate that the Neanderthals didn’t eat the wild mustard into extinction.

Look at all the icky veggies we moderns wouldn’t have to deal with.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Yes and also collard greens.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

~grin.

I am sure there are many people who would agree with you.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

You don’t like mustard on a hot dog (or hamburger, if you are a southerner)?

[wildbill]

There are humans who eat hamburgers without mustard? Come on, you’re shining me on.