Brutish and short? DNA 'switch' sheds light on Neanderthals

Reuters ^ | April 17, 2014 3:28pm EDT | SHARON BEGLEY

[blueplum]

New York (Reuters) - How can creatures as different in body and mind as present-day humans and their extinct Neanderthal cousins be 99.84 percent identical genetically?

Four years after scientists discovered that the two species' genomes differ by a fraction of a percent, geneticists said on Thursday they have an explanation: the cellular equivalent of "on"/"off" switches that determine whether DNA is activated or not.

:snip:

Calling the work "pioneering," and "a remarkable breakthrough," paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London said in an interview that the HOXD gene finding "may help to explain how these ancient humans were able to build stronger bodies, better adapted to the physical rigors of Stone Age life."

One caveat about the research is that one person's epigenome can vary markedly from another's due to diet, environment and other factors. It is therefore impossible to know whether the on/off patterns found in Neanderthal genes are typical of the species overall or peculiar to the individual studied.

[blueplum]

less psychiatric disorders in neanderthals?

[blueplum]

courtesy ping

[devolve]

- AHA - good thread post sportsfans….

- I am guessing this is based on/related to the DNA research in Germany -

- all those know-it-alls were wrong

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[BlueDragon]

Brutish and short too?

[Cowboy Bob]

If I remember correctly, the different races are about 99.84% genetically identical. (Maybe even a little less). If this is true, then wouldn’t the Neanderthals be considered a “race” if they existed today?

[blueplum]

short freckled redheads should qualify as an underprivileged and underserved minority. Bring on the perks!! where’s those obamaphones?! /jk

[broken_arrow1]

I don’t think the Neanderthal’s DNA died out - ever take a look at FLOTUS Moochelle?

[ronnie raygun]

Neanderthals be considered a “race” if they existed today
And competition for the race baiters

[goldstategop]

If you gave one a shave and dressed it up, there is scarcely anything that differentiates them from modern man. Except for the larger brain capacity. They died out several thousand years ago due to competition, displacement and rapidly shrinking numbers.

Neanderthal has become a shorthand for blundering into extinction. We have been lucky thus far - but Nature plays no favorites in the struggle of life.

[Reeses]

blundering into extinction.

They were pushed. They were victims of the arrival of white man, the fault of everything.

[I want the USA back]

Humans share 50% of genes with bananas. So this is just hype, designed to overwhelm the uninformed.

a few others.
Cat: 90%
Cow: 80%
Mouse: 75%
Fruit Fly: 60%

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“One caveat about the research is that one person’s epigenome can vary markedly from another’s due to diet, environment and other factors. It is therefore impossible to know whether the on/off patterns found in Neanderthal genes are typical of the species overall or peculiar to the individual studied.”

This is not a breakthrough, it is guess work. Without the mRNA they simply cannot know which genes were active and which were not.

[cdcdawg]

Actually, she wouldn’t have any Neanderthal DNA. POTUS would have some from his mother’s side.

[GladesGuru]

“less psychiatric disorders in neanderthals?”

Impossible! Just examine the statements coming from the mouths of Regime knuckle-walkers for conformation of sociopathy writ large.

[jameslalor]

Cowboy Bob wrote: “If I remember correctly, the different races are about 99.84% genetically identical. (Maybe even a little less). If this is true, then wouldn’t the Neanderthals be considered a “race” if they existed today?”

I’ve read studies that place the genetic distance between distinct populations at between 0.1% and 0.2% for some of the more distantly related, like Bantu-speakers in West Africa and Austral Aborigines(Cavalli-Sforza), and I’ve seen a few that estimate much higher - in the range of 0.2% to 0.5% if memory serves.

To put genetic distance into perspective, as multi-cellular organisms that share a huge number of common traits like skin, hair, bones, brains, lungs, kidneys, livers, stomachs, veins and arteries, red blood and oxygen based respiration, mitochondria and cytoplasm, etc., creatures like humans and mice share a hell of a lot of the same biological building blocks. Since the basic physical makeup of the creatures are so similar, much of the “blueprint” for these organisms is going to be identical. Hence, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that most mammals share about 95% or so of the genome.

They may have different numbers of chromosomes, but most of the day-to-day functions of respiration, metabolism, meiosis and the like are virtually identical between mammals. It doesn’t take much genetic variation to radically change the appearance and physical form of an organism, sometimes a change in just one out of 3-billion basepairs results in an organism visibly and radically different. Just switching one key A to G, for example, is responsible for achondroplasia.

The huge range of variation you see between mice and men is down to a few percentage points of the genome. Fractions of a percent separate species. How much genetic difference do you imagine exist between animals we have classified as different species? What genetic distance separates a poodle from a wolf?

I wonder how an impartial observer, say an archaeologist 50,000 years in the future looking back on our world, might classify different human populations.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks blueplum!

Four years after scientists discovered that the two species' genomes differ by a fraction of a percent, geneticists said on Thursday they have an explanation...

...the real explanation is twofold; 1, Neandertal is our ancestor, and 2, the puzzlement about why the genomic difference between the average living human (that has been sampled anyway) and a few isolated specimens of Neandertal are so close results from a straw man argument growing out of the racial-superiority model called Replacement theory.

[SunkenCiv]

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve

Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]

[Jeff Chandler]

[Jeff Chandler]

They died out several thousand years ago due to competition, displacement and rapidly shrinking numbers.

And man-made global warming.