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.
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Study: Neanderthal genes may be liability for COVID-19 patients:
Researchers Hugo Zeberg and Svante Paabo determined that the genes belong to a group, or haplotype, which likely came from Neanderthals. The haplotype is found in about 16% of the population in Europe and half the population in South Asia, while in Africa and East Asia it is non-existent.
[...] The genes are one of several risk factors for COVID-19, including age, sex and pre-existing conditions like obesity, diabetes and heart problems.
Zeberg and Paabo, who work at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, noted that the prevalence of the particular Neanderthal gene group is highest in people from Bangladesh, where 63% are estimated to carry a copy of the haplotype.
They cited studies from the U.K. showing that people of Bangladeshi descent have about two times higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than the general population.
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(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:00AM (12 children)
No, it is not. It will give your descendants fuzzy-thinking-republican disease. I mean, what are you, German?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:14AM (1 child)
No, Gaul.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:40AM
Well, that just rubs me the wrong way! At least you could use the proper letter. Neanderᚧal. Or an acceptable alternative: Neanderðal. Thorn rules!
(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.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:49AM
Neandertal is a valid spelling for the valley, but you are the first I've ever heard to assert it was a valid spelling for the ancient hominid.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:29AM (3 children)
... that it was a bad idea to "marry" my first cousin.
But he said it was completely cool to "marry" my second cousin.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @08:53AM (1 child)
I guess when "bottleneck" comes, you should "marry" whoever you have at hand, as many times as it takes to pull out of hat a healthy offspring. Also, at times like that, promiscuity makes sense, because the community is searching for viable genetic matchmaking. The closer your relative is to you, the more misses there'll be, but at least you will know for the ones which turn out strong that they don't carry most of the worst of detrimental recessive traits which used to run in the family. However, accidentally you may start another species (mismatched number of chromosomes) which will be unable to have kids with your original species.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:03PM
I think the promiscuity makes sense also because it offers the children more genetically diverse mates: it's probably safer to try to "marry" your half-cousin than your cousin.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Oakenshield on Tuesday October 24 2017, @03:52PM
If you can't keep it in your pants, at least keep it in the family.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:46AM (6 children)
In what genetic or speciated way are "Neandert[h]al humans" distinct from "modern humans"? If the two "interbred" then they were contemporaries, i.e. equally modern at the time, temporally speaking. Isn't that kind of like saying that modern humans interbreeding with Canadians restored certain genetic combinations?
Aside from the fact that if two individuals can "breed" and produce fertile offspring, then they are by definition the same species and there's no "inter" to it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:49AM (2 children)
Old terminology, I guess, from back when neandertals were still thought to be a separate branch.
We should probably be calling them northern humans and southern humans - or something like that - but how do we convince the established *-ologists of this?
(Score: 1) by MindEscapes on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:49PM (1 child)
Or we could try Neanderthals and Dwarf Neanderthals... ;)
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @03:48PM
And the current breed 'Homo Incompetus'
(Score: 3, Funny) by t-3 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:13PM
So, dogs and wolves and all the other canis, same species? Cows and buffalo?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @04:50PM
You're looking at it wrong. It's similar to when humans interbreed with the Amazing Talking African Ape. The resulting mongrel is still fertile and has human characteristics but is often overwhelmed with its simian features and an inability to stand on hind legs when the National Anthem is being played.
(Score: 0, Troll) by bob_super on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:00PM
Next, you're gonna pretend that it's actually biologically acceptable for our pretty white daughters to breed with Chinks, Negroes and Rednecks?