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Interbreeding with Neandertals[1] restored some genetic heirlooms that modern humans left behind in the ancient exodus from Africa, new research suggests.
Those heirlooms are versions of genes, or alleles, that were present in humans' and Neandertals' shared ancestors. Neandertals carried many of those old alleles, passing them along generation after generation, while developing their own versions of other genes. A small number of humans left Africa around 100,000 years ago and settled in Asia and Europe. These migrants "lost" the ancestral alleles.
But when the migrants or their descendants interbred with Neandertals, Eurasians reinherited the ancestral heirlooms along with Neandertal DNA, John "Tony" Capra reported October 20 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.
Unfortunately, a few of the genes identified are associated with disease.
[1] Though most often spelled Neanderthal, Neandertal is also a valid spelling.
(Score: 4, Funny) by martyb on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:56AM (8 children)
Besides the summary's provided entry on Wikipedia, you might want to take up the spelling with dictionary.com [dictionary.com], Merriam-Webster [merriam-webster.com], and a few others [onelook.com].
It may not be the preferred spelling (named after the Neanderthal Valley in Germany near Düsseldorf, where remains were first found — this is the spelling I personally prefer), but apparently it is listed as a variant.
Irregardless of watt yew and eye wood prefer, they're enough miss takes out their too make it part of come on usage. =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 4, Funny) by WalksOnDirt on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:55AM (2 children)
Neandertal reflects the correct pronunciation, and I'm seeing it more and more in scientific writings. I almost always prefer more phonetic spellings where there is a choice.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @08:08AM
I can't HEAR you!! Bloody Phonecians and their spellings! Hey, did you ever think that maybe we already have our own way of spelling words? Ones we learned from out Neander . . . Neoandro. . . Neo Anderson . . . Ancestors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25 2017, @08:51AM
Then why are you writing in correctly spelled English? ;)
(Score: 3, Funny) by inertnet on Tuesday October 24 2017, @09:02AM (2 children)
In German, the word 'Tal' means 'valley', so the name should really be Neandertaler. Take a look at the German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertaler [wikipedia.org].
I'm not German myself, but knowing where the word came from, 'Neanderthaler' just looks wrong to me.
(Score: 2, Informative) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:45PM (1 child)
That would be the modern spelling. "Tal" used to be spelled "Thal". German used to be even more phonetic than it is nowadays, as "Tal" is still pronounced with an aspiration after the "T", so "Thal" would be its phonetic version. When the place where the Neandertaler was found was named after Neander in the 17th century, the spelling was still "Neanderthal". So take your pick.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:01PM
"Dahl" or "Dall" in Norvegian, "Dale" or "Vale" in Anglo-Saxon. The shift from unvoiced to voiced percussives is quite common.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:13PM
I think your sense of humor needs to interbreed with that of a modern humans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @04:27PM
I was about to correct you for using irregardless...
Then I realized I'd been Whooshed, if only briefly.