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Despite Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal interbreeding that has been detected using evidence from modern genomes, weak neanderthal genes are gradually being removed by natural selection, according to researchers:
The Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 years ago, but little pieces of them live on in the form of DNA sequences scattered through the modern human genome. A new study by geneticists at the University of California, Davis, shows why these traces of our closest relatives are slowly being removed by natural selection.
"On average, there has been weak but widespread selection against Neanderthal genes," said Graham Coop, professor in the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology, and senior author on a paper describing the work published Nov. 8 in the journal PLOS Genetics. That selection seems to be a consequence of a small population of Neanderthals mixing with a much larger population of modern humans.
[...] "The human population size has historically been much larger, and this is important since selection is more efficient at removing deleterious variants in large populations," Juric said. "Weakly deleterious variants that could persist in Neanderthals could not persist in humans. We think that this simple explanation can account for the pattern of Neanderthal ancestry that we see today along the genome of modern humans."
Juric I, Aeschbacher S, Coop G (2016) The Strength of Selection against Neanderthal Introgression. PLoS Genet 12(11): e1006340. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006340
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:32PM
I find it entirely crazy that people call Trump stupid. Here's a guy who managed to hijack a political party, do the opposite of what everyone on earth said to do, had the media almost unilaterally rail against him, and still get elected That's a whole lot of things, but that's not stupid. If you can pull that off, either your system is fundamentally broken, or you're pretty fucking clever. I didn't vote for him, but I'm willing to give him the chance and wait for him to do something evil/self-destructive. If he does, yay, lets impeach the guy. His own party hates him, so it shouldn't be that hard. If not, well, let's stop and reflect upon that. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic here. If he's such an egotist, I doubt he'll want a disaster attached to his most noteworthy achievement.
Far as the people who voted for him go? There's a lot of things you can blame for that. Stupidity I don't think is necessarily one of them. Race may have some component, but he had the latino vote somewhere between the same and slightly higher than Romney did. Better with the black vote. It's surprisingly hard to find out what the percentage of the muslim vote is, but that's also not a race. In spite of the brouhaha, the numbers show that "he's a racist!!!" didn't really stick. Gender didn't have too much to do with it either. More women voted for Clinton than Trump, yes, but her entire platform was designed to appeal to the female vote so hard, so I'd expect that, and she still couldn't lock it down. Maybe most women don't appreciate being pandered to?
I mostly blame the media for whipping this into such a shitstorm. I blame the DNC for not bringing someone more electable to the table. I blame modern politics for not acknowledging (and actually doing) something for the collapsing working class for so long. I blame everyone for being so sick and tired of the Clinton/Bush political dynasties.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:08PM
I think the GGP was referring to Trump's voters rather than, necessarily to Trump ("I love uneducated people") himself.
Trump is a professional con man; that's the line of business he went into, basically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:37PM
I voted for Trump and have a 60 point IQ advantage over you.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:51PM
"have a 60 point IQ advantage over you."
Sure.
https://xkcd.com/715/ [xkcd.com]
Bottom right chart :D
(Score: 2) by termigator on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:13PM
You just need to be clever emotionally, i.e. the ability to tap into people's emotional brain so it overrides the rational part. For the vast majority of humans, emotion trumps (pun alert) rationality. If you analyze elections, the candidate that can control the electorate's emotions has a good chance of winning despite the policies they advocate.
Manipulating emotions allows one to get folks to vote against their best interest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:57PM
Oh dear, pop-psychology.
If this were true, why weren't there mass defectors from the DNC to vote for Trump? I mean he is skilled at manipulating the emotional part of the brain, which over-rides rationality, so initial biases shouldn't matter much. Are Democratic voters less emotional than Republicans (and how are those protest going)? Is Hilary also some Svengali at manipulating people's emotion while being one of the most despised candidates and still securing the nomination?
Do tell.
Manipulating emotions allows one to get folks to vote against their best interest.
And pray tell from your lofty heights how are you able to tell what someone's best interests are?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:31PM
If this were true, why weren't there mass defectors from the DNC to vote for Trump?
What makes you think there weren't?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:19PM
I did.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:30PM
And there are really only 3 emotional hooks that most politicians use:
- Fear: For the Trump campaign, that was fear of foreigners and . For the Clinton campaign, that was fear of bigots of various stripes.
- Hope: This was most famously the hallmark of the Obama campaign. It was also used quite effectively by the Sanders campaign. Or you can see it in the slogan "Make America Great Again".
- Hate: Whether it's George W Bush basically basing his re-election campaign on hatred of Al Qaida, or the Clinton campaign focusing on the hatred of "deplorables", this is a standard appeal.
It's tough to combat these, although studying propaganda technique will at least help you notice that you're being played like a fiddle.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:32PM
Obviously, should have read more carefully. That was intended to be "foreigners and different religions."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:52PM
Manipulating emotions: claims that Trump would start nuclear war, or that he is horribly racist, or that he is some other "disqualifying" offensive whatever
Vote against your best interest: choosing to endorse corruption, with corruption right at the top where it can set an example for all of America -- 3rd world here we come
More vote against your best interest: choosing to welcome those who will make America anything but liberal -- 50 to 100 years from now their ideas will bring ISIS-style government to the USA
Yep, you have described the Clinton vote.