Posted on 09/19/2019 10:42:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
Israeli team used DNA to design first Denosivan replica
Portrait of a female Denisovan teen. (photo credit: MAAYAN HAREL)
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Meet “Denise,” the first reconstructed anatomical profile of what, until now, were considered the mysterious Denisovans, a group of archaic humans.
She was revealed on Thursday by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The team who managed to recreate her profile say that long-term, their research shows possible strategies that could be taken for forensic applications.
Denisovans lived in Siberia and Eastern Asia before going extinct approximately 50,000 years ago, said Hebrew University researcher Prof. Liran Carmel, who led the study. But exactly what Denisovans might have looked like had previously been anyone’s guess. Since their original discovery in 2008, researchers had only three fossils to work with: a bone from the tip of “Denise’s” pinkie finger, a few teeth and a recently found lower jaw bone. The researchers were able to reconstruct the Denisovan profile over a three-year period by examining patterns of methylation in their ancient DNA.
3-D printed reconstruction of a female Denisovan (Credit: Maayan Harel)3-D printed reconstruction of a female Denisovan (Credit: Maayan Harel)
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DNA methylation is a process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule, thereby changing the activity of a segment of DNA. “Methylation provides ample information on gene transcription,” Carmel explained.
By studying Denisovan DNA methylation maps and comparing them to those of Neanderthals – another group of archaic humans who went extinct in Europe about 40,000 years ago – as well as ancient Homo sapiens, the team was able to understand what the differences might mean to Denisovan anatomical features, based on what is known about human disorders in which those genes lose their function.
“We got a prediction as to what skeletal parts are affected by differential regulation of each gene and in what direction that skeletal part would change – for example, a longer or shorter femur bone,” said Dr. David Gokhman, now a postdoc at Stanford, who also worked on the project.
Carmel said it is very difficult to get an anatomical profile from a DNA sequence: at most, scientists and forensics teams can tell basic details, such as whether the person has dark hair or skin. DNA methylation, however, allows researchers to make much more detailed anatomical predictions.
The team was able to prove about 85% accuracy of their model by using the same methodology to create anatomical models of Neanderthals and chimpanzees, which have known anatomical profiles.
“One of the most exciting moments happened a few weeks after we sent our paper to peer-review,” Carmel said. “Scientists had discovered a Denisovan jawbone. We quickly compared this bone to our predictions and found that it matched perfectly. Without even planning it, we received independent confirmation of our ability to reconstruct whole anatomical profiles using DNA that we extracted from a single fingertip.”
The researchers found that Denisovans have striking similar methylation patterns to humans. They also found that there are 56 anatomical features in which Denisovans differ from modern humans and/or Neanderthals, 34 of them in the skull.
Past research done outside of Hebrew University showed that up to 6% of present-day Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians contain Denisovan DNA. Further, Denisovan DNA likely contributed to modern Tibetans’ ability to live in high altitudes and to Inuits’ ability to withstand freezing temperatures.
Although Carmel said that “using our method directly for forensic application is currently not possible,” because it is designed to study differences outside the variability of modern humans and police would need to find features within that variability, “DNA methylation may provide much information that could help the police,” with forensic data, according to Carmel.
Whatever, there are legitimate objects made by some one over 2 billion years old.
The mitochondria issue has had me stumped for some time. Pre-mitochondria may be it. I don’t know.
Here are the other GGG topics introduced the past couple of weeks.
Thanks Red Badger. I'm going to use this as the weekly digest ping, a day or so early.
Wasn’t this claymation dude in an early Will Vinton short?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzZP47nT6Hc
jump to 4:15 mark
ask yourself this:
You a flint or obsidian spear point attached to a 3 to 6 foot tree limb smoothed out with the flint or obsidian attached only with dried rawhide or sinew, you look up and you are facing a direwolf 2 to 3 feet at the shoulder or a short-faced bear 6 feet at the shoulder. Do you think it possible or even probably that human hunters so armed would take casualties during such encounters?
Even with pristine samples the carbon 14 levels are too low to accurately measure anything older than about 50,000 years.
For the same reason that your grandma is your ancestor even though she is dead.
How quickly WE FORGET!Just a few short years ago this topic would have created a race to see who could post a picture of Helen Thomas.
Now there are probably newbies asking, Who is Helen Thomas?
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Never mind that, who is Gloria Mundi? And why is she sick on public transportation?
LOL! I'd post my HT as Sphinx pic, but I haven't uploaded it to the new free graphics cloud since Tinypic croaked.
Paging Laz.....yY or ney?
lol
After a couple of drinks, I'd be like "GAME ON".
Of course our ancestors figured out how to protect themselves from wolves and bears. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here today. Also there were apparently cave bear cults, and their skulls were found in ritual positions in the French caves from 25,000 and older, so the bears were respected but definitely killable.
Of course we are still evolving. Six or more thousand years ago, horse people of central Asia seemed to have evolved the capacity to digest milk into adult years. In a mobile herding culture this was a winter life saver. Then they migrated/conquered? into Europe and soon most future Europeans could also digest milk as adults because it provided a survival advantage during the winter. Also as dark skinned people migrated north into Europe, they either or both bred with Neanderthals or mutated fairer skin. This enabled them to produce more Vitamin D in their skin and improved the wideness of female hips and successful live births. We have not stopped evolving. New evolved capabilities may not show up unless there is stress or changing living conditions for people to be aware that they have occurred.
Johann Sebastian Bach had 20 children, only 10 survived through to adulthood:
1. Catharina Dorothea Bach (1708 – 1774)
2. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710 - 1784)
3 & 4. Johann Christoph Bach and Maria Sophia Bach (Born and died in 1713)
5. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714 - 1788)
6. Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach (1715 - 1739)
7. Leopold Augustus Bach (1718 - 1719)
8. Christina Sophia Henrietta (1723 - 1726)
9. Gottfried Heinrich Bach (1724 - 1763)
10. Christian Gottlieb Bach (1725 - 1728)
11. Elisabeth Juliana Friederica (1726 - 1781)
12. Ernestus Andreas Bach (Born and died in 1727)
13. Regina Johanna Bach (1728 - 1733)
14. Christiana Benedicta Louise (Born and died in 1730)
15. Christiana Dorothea Bach (1731 - 1732)
16. Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732 - 1795)
17. Johann August Abraham Bach (Born and died in 1733)
18. Johann Christian Bach (1735 - 1782)
19. Johanna Carolina Bach (1737 - 1781)
20. Regina Susanna Bach (1742 - 1809)
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