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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
UCLA computational biologists have discovered that four populations in West Africa can trace about 8% of their genetic ancestry to an archaic hominin, an extinct relative of humans that branched off from the hominid evolutionary tree more than 600,000 years ago — about 100,000 years earlier than Neanderthals did. The study is published in Science Advances.
Over the past decade, advances in computing, statistical analysis, molecular biology and genetics have revealed a richer picture of humans and their interactions with ancient relatives, such as Neanderthals. But research on the genetic ancestry of African populations has lagged behind discoveries about people with ancestral roots in Europe.
The researchers, from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, analyzed modern DNA obtained from an international repository of genomic data. In the past, researchers would have needed to compare the modern DNA to so-called “reference DNA” from ancient fossils to draw such conclusions. But the improved statistical techniques available today enabled them to look backward in time hundreds of thousands of years without fossil DNA.
“This opens a new path in understanding the complexity of human evolutionary history in Africa, where the picture hasn’t been as clear,” said Sriram Sankararaman, the study’s principal investigator, a UCLA assistant professor with appointments in computer science, human genetics and computational medicine.
The archaic hominin identified in the UCLA research is a close evolutionary relative of humans.
Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populations [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax5097)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @12:49PM (5 children)
But remember kids, human races do not exist! Mankind members are a biological exception, or maybe it's just that evolution does not apply to them!!
Now go watch some climate change porn.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @01:52PM (3 children)
what this actually builds up to is the already well understood reality that human evolution is a combination of lineages mixing in various ways over a long period of time, with the different branches never separating too much. it's actually a big sign that humans have been human for longer than typically acknowledged.
and what are identified as different species in the fossil record were not actually different species.
and also a big sign that humans alive today are a lot more similar than typically acknowledged.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Friday February 21 2020, @04:04PM
That is a spectacular PC somersault on this political dynamite. TFA shows nothing of the sort, in fact quite the opposite; it shows that a significant fraction of the genetic make-up of West Africans has been separate from that of the rest of the human race for a very long time.
As for what is typically acknowledged, I have never seen anything of official origin (except in history) that acknowledges that racial differences even exist, other than skin reflection coefficients.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:36PM (1 child)
I'm unsure if you're trolling, but what you're saying is literally exactly the opposite of the what the paper says. The paper observes that a human ancestor which would ostensibly be a common ancestor of many (if not most) humans only shows up in West Africans. That indicates clearly that West Africans and the rest of humanity do not share any remotely recent common ancestor or otherwise we would also have a share of this extinct group's DNA. On top of this, it also indicates that West Africans can attribute a fairly sizable chunk of their genetics to an ancestor that went extinct and which only they share.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @07:18PM
I don't think you understand what "recent" means on the evolutionary time scale.
But hey, this article is just racist clickbait as evidenced by the first response and there is no arguing with racists. Facts don't matter, only the sliver shreds of rationale they can use to cover their prejudice.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 22 2020, @02:15AM
With the full knowledge I'm replying to a troll...
Intelligent beings, which H. sapiens are, can do a tremendous amount to override our biology by using culture and technology. These two move far faster than DNA change does and allow us to do literally superhuman things--compare a knife to a fingernail, or for that matter a skyscraper to napping in a tree. Think of it as the third turning of the evolutionary wheel (by analogy to the "Xth turning of the wheel of dharma" concept): stimulus/response, then instinct, then intelligence.
The more amazing thing is how a big gap like 8% genetic difference still leads to a modern human being. I suspect a good chunk of the differences occur in non-coding or otherwise "insignificant" portions of the genome.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...