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Mysterious ancient humans may have given people of Papua New Guinea an immune advantage
Science ^ | December 8 2022 | Ann Gibbons

Posted on 12/16/2022 10:00:27 PM PST by SunkenCiv

When modern humans first migrated from Africa to the tropical islands of the southwest Pacific, they encountered unfamiliar people and new pathogens. But their immune systems may have picked up some survival tricks when they mated with the locals—the mysterious Denisovans who gave them immune gene variants that might have protected the newcomers’ offspring from local diseases. Some of these variants still persist in the genomes of people living in Papua New Guinea today, according to a new study.

Researchers have known for a decade that living people in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia, a subregion of the southwest Pacific Ocean, inherited up to 5% of their DNA from Denisovans, ancient humans closely related to Neanderthals who arrived in Asia about 200,000 years ago. Scientists assume those variants benefited people in the past—perhaps by helping the modern humans better ward off local diseases—but they have wondered how that DNA might still be altering how people look, act, and feel today. It’s been difficult to detect the function of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in Melanesians, however, because scientists have analyzed so little genetic data from living humans in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia.

The new study overcomes that problem by using genetic data from 56 individuals from Papua New Guinea that were recently analyzed for another paper, part of the Indonesian Genome Diversity Project. The researchers, mostly from Australia and New Guinea, compared those genomes with those of Denisovans from Denisova Cave in Siberia, as well as Neanderthals. They found the Papuans had inherited unusually high frequencies of 82,000 genetic variants known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, which arise from differences of a single base or letter in the genetic code—from Denisovans.

(Excerpt) Read more at science.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: denisovans; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; papuanewguinea

1 posted on 12/16/2022 10:00:27 PM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

2 posted on 12/16/2022 10:01:12 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv
But their immune systems may have picked up some survival tricks when they mated with the locals

See? Hitting it makes you healthy!

3 posted on 12/16/2022 10:03:22 PM PST by Lazamataz (The firearms I own today, are the firearms I will die with. How I die will be up to them.)
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To: Lazamataz

The Kirk Law of Interspecies Relations.


4 posted on 12/16/2022 10:04:50 PM PST by dead (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_vFiUUcBkc)
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To: SunkenCiv

I’m gonn’a take a leap here and guess . . . . there just might be some humans that have been untouched by “modernization” since being kicked out of the Garden and have lived according to what God had originally taught them and LO! . . . God knew what He was talkin’ ‘bout with them there dietary laws.


5 posted on 12/16/2022 10:05:49 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true . . . I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: dead

The Laz Law of trying to Hit It with everything concave.


6 posted on 12/16/2022 10:05:54 PM PST by Lazamataz (The firearms I own today, are the firearms I will die with. How I die will be up to them.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Maybe it is the starvation diets they are on, involuntary that is.


7 posted on 12/16/2022 10:22:25 PM PST by Kenny500c ( )
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To: Lazamataz

Womankind is boomed!


8 posted on 12/16/2022 10:46:25 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Further: Who were the Denisovans

https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/the-denisovans/


9 posted on 12/16/2022 10:50:39 PM PST by Candor7
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To: Candor7
Hobbits.


10 posted on 12/16/2022 11:16:16 PM PST by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
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To: bagster

The online photos support your conclusion

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Denisovans&atb=v297-1&iax=images&ia=images


11 posted on 12/17/2022 1:01:40 AM PST by Candor7
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To: bagster
Hobbits.


12 posted on 12/17/2022 1:29:47 AM PST by humblegunner
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To: Lazamataz

ROTFL—Laz, you are a treasure!


13 posted on 12/17/2022 2:45:11 AM PST by VMI70 (2 wrongs don't make a right, but two Wrights made an airplane.)
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To: Lazamataz

See a snake and grab it by the ears...


14 posted on 12/17/2022 5:00:23 AM PST by trebb (So many fools - so little time...)
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To: SunkenCiv

Europeans and east Asians have neanderthal blood, Africans not so much. Just say’in.


15 posted on 12/17/2022 5:44:42 AM PST by beef (Say NO to the WOE (War On Energy))
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To: beef

Yeah, the “Out of Africa” trope was in the text.


16 posted on 12/17/2022 8:51:30 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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