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Most people alive today carry traces of genes inherited from Neanderthals -- the enduring legacy of prehistoric hookups with our extinct cousins. But researchers have long debated when and where that mingling happened, and whether these were one-off romps or commonplace trysts. Now, an analysis of ancient and modern genomes suggests contemporary people's Neanderthal DNA came from a single, prolonged period of mixing some 47,000 years ago...To do that, Priya Moorjani, a population geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues analyzed previously sequenced genomes from 59 ancient H. sapiens, mostly from Western Europe and Asia, dating from between...

We usually assume that inbreeding is bad and should be avoided under all circumstances. But new research performed by researchers at Stockholm University, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, shows that there is little support for this assumption. The idea that animals should avoid mating with relatives has been the starting point for hundreds of scientific studies performed among many species. But it turns out the picture is more complicated. “People assume that animals should avoid mating with a relative when given the chance,” says Raïssa de Boer, researcher in zoology at Stockholm University. “But evolutionary theory has been telling...

HUMANITY has a filthy secret: our ancestors used to have sex with members of other species. That’s the finding in a new piece of research which suggests ancient people used to romp with a “ghost” species of proto human. We are just one of a number of species known as hominins. Members of this family include Neanderthals and Denisovans, which are no longer found on Earth. “It seems that interbreeding between different early hominin species is not the exception — it’s the norm,” said Omer Gokcumen, assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo. Gokcumen tested the DNA...

Two men in Northwest Alaska drowned after trying to drive their snowmachine over open water on the Kobuk River early Tuesday, according to Alaska State Troopers.

A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex. The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study. The human cranium was found during World War II mining operations in 1942, in a cave littered with Ice Age cave bear remains. Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature. The otherwise human skull has a groove at the base of the back of the skull, just...

I'm know you've seen them and you probably have interacted with them. They are coming out of the woodwork here on FR and on the radio talk shows and everywhere else as we move towards the next defeat of the Demonicrats in 2004. Who are they? Who knows! Rush calls them "Seminar Callers", Hannity seems to be able to screen them out and does not have a name for them that I know of. OReilly gets 'em and lately we've had SCADS of the little eight legged things crawling all through some of the more controversial posts here. They are...