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posted by martyb on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-all-in-the-family dept.

Artificial intelligence applied to the genome identifies an unknown human ancestor

By combining deep learning algorithms and statistical methods, investigators from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Institute of Genomics at the University of Tartu have identified, in the genome of Asiatic individuals, the footprint of a new hominid who cross bred with its ancestors tens of thousands of years ago.

Modern human DNA computational analysis suggests that the extinct species was a hybrid of Neanderthals and Denisovans and cross bred with Out of Africa modern humans in Asia. This finding would explain that the hybrid found this summer in the caves of Denisova–the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father–, was not an isolated case, but rather was part of a more general introgression process.

The study, published in Nature Communications [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08089-7] [DX], uses deep learning for the first time ever to account for human evolution, paving the way for the application of this technology in other questions in biology, genomics and evolution.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday January 18 2019, @01:05AM (1 child)

    by lentilla (1770) on Friday January 18 2019, @01:05AM (#788095)

    Educated guesses, yes, but guesses all the same. We need some other disciplines to be just as honest

    Ah yes - a curse of human nature - mistaking confidence for knowledge.

    When I was a younger I used to hedge my pronouncements (for example: "... at room temperature" or "my experiments indicate that ..."). As a result a people often ignored what I was saying.

    Today I simply make pronouncements with utter conviction: "dolphins are fish" I will say. (I'd be wrong, btw...) This way, most people nod their heads in agreement because I appear confident and thus it follows that I know what I am talking about. It's not too great a sin - if somebody actually knows more about a topic than me they are welcome to correct me.

    I believe this is why "talking heads" talk in absolutes and with conviction - because if they show doubt (such as by saying things like "we believe ...") then people will (often mistakenly) assume they don't know what they are talking about and subsequently discount their opinion and expertise.

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  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday January 18 2019, @04:44AM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Friday January 18 2019, @04:44AM (#788141) Homepage Journal

    You're a confidence man. Or confidence person. That's terrific -- very smart. Because confidence can take you very far in life. And so many times, when we're confident about something, it comes true. I was very confident about Bart. And he didn't let me down. He's on SC and writing Majority Opinions!