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Fifty thousand years ago, a Neandertal relieved himself in a cave in present-day Belgium, depositing, among other things, a sample of his DNA. The urine clung to minerals in the soil and the faeces eventually decomposed. But traces of the DNA remained, embedded in the cave floor, where earth falling from the cave's ceiling and blowing in from outside eventually entombed it. Now, researchers have shown they can find and identify such genetic traces of both Neandertals and Denisovans, another type of archaic human, enabling them to test for the presence of ancient humans even in sites where no bones have been found.
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Neanderthal DNA Recovered from Cave Soil
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If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 28 2017, @02:49PM (1 child)
I bet you'd have sex with one too, it seems you have a fetish.
You want to make one go "OOgaBoogaBooga....OOOOGGAAAAAAABoogaBoogaBoogaBooga!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 28 2017, @06:32PM
It probably runs in the ancestral line. After all, being of northern European heritage, it's possible that my ancestors did just that if the studies identifying neandertal genetics in modern humans are to be believed.
What if instead of looking ape-like as neandertals are commonly depicted, they instead looked Scandinavian, say?