Posted on 09/29/2012 1:04:30 PM PDT by blam
DNA Unveils Enigmatic Denisovans
Extinct Neandertal relatives serve up a complete genetic playbook
By Bruce Bower
Science News
September 22nd, 2012; Vol.182 #6 (p. 5)
A replica of a partial Denisovan finger bone, placed on its corresponding position on a person’s hand, emphasizes the small size of this ancient find. Scientists have retrieved a comprehensive set of genetic instructions from the actual Denisovan finger fossil. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Genetic data of unprecedented completeness have been pulled from the fossil remains of a young Stone Age woman. The DNA helps illuminate the relationships among her group — ancient Siberians known as Denisovans — Neandertals, and humans.
The Denisovan’s genetic library suggest that she came from a small population that expanded rapidly as it moved south through Asia, says a team led by Matthias Meyer and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Denisovans passed genes to Papua New Guineans but not to Asians, Europeans or South Americans, the researchers report online August 30 in Science. That’s in line with previous evidence that Denisovans contributed to the ancestry of present-day Australian aborigines and Melanesians.
The new investigation also finds that Asians and South Americans possess more Neandertal genes than Europeans do. Although Neandertals inhabited Europe and West Asia, they may have interbred most frequently with Homo sapiens in East Asia, or, possibly, had their genetic contributions to Europeans diluted as increasing numbers of Stone Age humans reached that continent.
“We can now start to catalog essential genetic changes that occurred after we separated from our closest extinct relatives,” Pääbo says. Preliminary DNA comparisons between people today and the young female Denisovan have identified eight human-specific genes involved in brain functions, including one linked to language and speech development.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
That's suprising.
GGG Ping.
All this from a finger bone and a tooth.
“...South Americans possess more Neandertal genes than Europeans do...”
My goodness!!!!
(I am trying to find a way to be more sarcastic, but I am too busy killing myself laughing.)
I live in Latin America. These folks can’t pull their fabricated wool over my eyes.
P.S.
Anybody for global warming?
And if they later determine it is from ordinary monkeys, the discovery will still be be used for atheist propaganda.
I take it you either missed that they’ve recovered DNA, or you don’t grasp the significance thereof. If it was a common monkey, we’d know. Since we’ve sequenced close to 60% of the Neanderthal genome, we’d know that as well, which not so coincidentally, we do.
Too funny!!!
Something similar was printed here on FR a couple of years back dealing with the little finger bone and the tooth. At that time it also got a good laugh.
As one Freeper noted at the time, the Freeper asked how do we not know the owner of the finger bone and maybe the same owner of tooth...maybe... did not have elephantiasis?
It was a good argument point.
Reference your castigation at post #6.
Don’t let the turkeys get you down. Continue soaring with the eagles…
All it takes is a couple of strands of your hair to prove your descent from your biological parents.
That’s what DNA sequencing is for.
A smart well-equipped stone ager could survive! With just about 800 such tsunamis in any 3,000 year period, an awful lot of folks could be shipped over ~ and they would be just like the East Asians back home.
There is no need for a landbridge in Alaska!
No wonder the Neanderthals went to S.America, after a winter of wearing the same smelly animal skins being able to run around in a loin cloth would seem pretty good.
IOW, "Remain a bird-brain..."
Actually, yes. Since every single cell contains the entire genome of the individual it came from, and given the exquisite sensitivity of PCE, it only takes the isolation of a very few cells to have a scientifically valid sample.
SEQUENCING the DNA produced by the PCR process is another matter and identifying specific fragments that "code" for certain characteristics takes a lot more work....but even that has gotten so sophisticated and automated that it is fairly simple to do.
If Asians possess more Neandertal genes, then it is not surprising that people who migrated to the Americas FROM Asia would also be likely to possess those genes.
I bet this was from a govt study that will need more fund to further develop the work.
Starting to look like the Neandertals were the smart ones ....
The Neandertal Enigma"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]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks blam. |
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The article says this bone has been given a provisional age of from 74,000 to 82,000 years old. Perhaps these people were heavily reduced by the Toba megavolcano around 73,000 year ago.
The Hobbits, way out west, were survivors of that event.
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