> ... the genetic differences between Neanderthals and all modern humans(amounting to about 30,000) are far less than the differences between two random human beings alive today – around 3 million. “Our job is to find out which of those 30,000 are most important, because they tell us what makes us uniquely human,” [Pääbo] says.
How is that even mathematically possible? If two random humans have 3 million differences between them, how can a neanderthal only have 30000 differences with each of them?
edit: I think the idea is that if you take the total set of all genes all modern humans possess, then there's only 30000 of genes the neanderthals have that aren't part of this?
Perhaps there were many differences between different Neanderthal individuals as well, i.e. on the order of 3 million genetic differences, just like there are between modern individuals.
I suspect it's 2 individual h saps are, modally, 3 million bp apart ... but the h neanderthalensis population mean is only 30 thousand bp away from the h sap population mean.
(consider intra- vs inter-group differences in h sap genomes)
[edit: yeah, maybe the 30k means 30k in the parts of the population blobs which don't overlap: card(neander XOR sap)?]
I think the key word is all modern humans (i.e. 30,000 genes common to Neanderthals not identified in any modern humans, with humans tending have to bits of other genes associated with Neanderthals but not other human ancestors which differ from human to human)
Below that it suggest that 60-70% of the [distinct from other hominid ancestors] Neanderthal genome is shared with a [typical, Eurasian] modern human, which again without more careful wording clashes with general assumption that our DNA has 99.7% overlap with Neanderthals, 98% plus with modern apes (and 60% with fruit flies!)
He seems a remarkably humble man, for such a high calibre scientist.
The article states that Pääbo is described as being "a bit overwhelmed" by the attention he received after receiving the Nobel prize and he admits "It’s a bit of a burden, to be honest, all the attention I’ve been getting. But it’s a pleasant burden, and one for which I know I can’t expect much sympathy." He also mentions that at his Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, his co-workers did their best to stop the award from going to his head by "throwing him in the pond outside" and "removing his glasses and taking his phone away beforehand." Additionally, he acknowledges that the prize is as much his colleagues' prize as his, showing humility and team spirit.
It's wonderful to see his work being recognized. I was in bioinformatics grad school when the first major Neanderthal sequencing paper came out and it was a bombshell.
According to 23andme I have just under 4% Neanderthal DNA - more than 99.9% of people in the world - I have always wondered what that actually means for me as a human.
I am relatively successful in that I have a job I can do, met a partner and married, and have children - so this DNA hasn't held me back in any way I can see - but does it set me apart in any ways? How many of the things that are specific to my experience of the world are shaped by this DNA?
Hair Color and Type
Immune System Benefits
Sleeping Patterns
Depression and Addiction
Blood Clotting Issues
Protein Malnutrition
Eye Color
Light and Dark Skin
I am a part of the same group and have often wondered the same things. Are there any benefits or handicaps from this or is it just a fun spin on a microscopic difference in my genetics?
It's fun to hear the suppositions behind your questions. I mean, we also say that modern humans have the same mental faculties as humans from 200,000 years ago. Neanderthals or homo sapiens, either way the science says we are no different than "cave men" (who probably did not predominantly live in caves). The whole concept of cave man - both neanderthal and sapiens such - is a sterotype, of course.
I think Neanderthal genes are especially common if you have heritage from between east asia to europe - you share this with a lot of people.
Edit: The method they use only allows them to discover negative things. Many of these same traits probably offer some advantages as well, but they only have quantitative data on disease.
Neanderthals only died out around 40 000 years ago. If Neanderthals had survived today, they would likely not be considered a separate species - but merely the descendants of an earlier Out of Africa migration.
I really hate when scientific reporting repeats figures without really providing context, just to check the "we tried to explain" box.
> One of the first of many surprises in his research was to find out that the genetic differences between Neanderthals and all modern humans(amounting to about 30,000) are far less than the differences between two random human beings alive today – around 3 million [bases ?]
> At least half of the Neanderthal genome – probably as much as 60 to 70% of it, Pääbo believes – is to be found in living humans
This does not compute in multiple ways. Some information is obviously missing, but all we get is these two paragraphs next to each other.
The quote in the headline is from the end of the article:
> Another surprising discovery relates to pain perception. Using data from the UK’s biobank – the world’s largest biomedical database which contains the genetic information of around half a million of the country’s citizens – Pääbo was able to establish that people with a specific Neanderthal variant are more likely to feel pain and to therefore age quicker. “It’s maybe time to rethink our idea of Neanderthals as brutish individuals,” Pääbo quips. “Maybe they were actually quite sensitive.”
The stress of both mental and physical pain does tend to cause people to exhibit signs of aging earlier and, as I recall, correlates with dying earlier as well.
Modern humans are basically hybrid mixes of ancient populations of different types of upward walking intelligent "homo <something>". The large differences in human behavior are a direct result of these varying ancient populations. The political ramifications of this make it difficult to discuss openly. But there is so much evidence coming out from both DNA analysis as well as new fossil bones being found all the time.
> The large differences in human behavior are a direct result of these varying ancient populations.
That’s a very strong claim without any evidence. Not only that, it’s the kind of claim that you could never have evidence for. It’s purely speculation on your part.
Actually thats completely false, human populations that have a higher percentage of neanderthal DNA will differ in behavior from those that don't. This is very obvious, and claiming otherwise is intellectually dishonest
Once again, no evidence. Just stating it’s true and obvious.
But let’s test it. Are you referring to people like say Papua New Guineans who have very large amounts of Neanderthal (4%) and (6%) Denisovan dna ? Or are you maybe talking about Europeans which have less (1 - 2%)? Also can you tell us the exact behavioral differences that are so obvious from people with less than 2% Neanderthal dna?
I agree with you basically, especially in the with regards to "The political ramifications of this make it difficult to discuss openly."
The mainstream accepted view on human population differences is so schizoid to me. On the one hand, you're supposed to believe that "race is a social construct", and indeed many aspects of race/ethnicity are arbitrary and socially constructed.
On the other hand, it's well documented and widely accepted that huge number of measurable and physical traits including skin color, eye color, hair color, hair consistency, face shape, height potential, facial hair growth, and susceptibility to both genetic and infectious diseases (see for example, Cystic Fibrosis and Northern Europeans, Sickle-Cell anemia and Sub-Saharan Africans), are strongly correlated with race and ancestry.
But you're supposed to believe that the same genetic variation that causes all of these physical differences between groups has no effect at all on behavioral differences. Personally, I don't understand how one can honestly reconcile that. I understand why it's not discussed in the current milieu, and I understand that it's potentially very dangerous to the existing social order, but as far as I'm concerned it's a pretty obvious thing to anyone who is willing to see it.
I'm not really interested in making value judgements about entire population groups here. A lot of things would need to be considered if one were to do so. For the record, Europeans spent most of their history fighting bloody, costly wars against one another, and now aren't able to reproduce at a sustainable rate so I don't know about them having the "best" behavior.
But my comment wasn't about saying any one group is "better" than another, I was just pointing out how incongruous it is to believe that population group genetics have a significant effect on physical features and disease susceptibility, while having zero effect on temperament and behavior.
Agree with you. "Best" behavior is only meaningful if there was some kind of way to set a civilization-wide goal and optimize for it.
Since we don't set goals for humanity at large, there's no definition of "best" to optimize for, just complex combinations of sub-behaviors that may or may not be beneficial to certain groups under certain conditions, nothing more.
Sickle-cell trait is found in sub-Saharan Africans from tropical regions. It is rare in South Africa, most of which is malaria-free and thus has no benefit to the mutation.
> But you're supposed to believe that the same genetic variation that causes all of these physical differences between groups has no effect at all on behavioral differences.
Well, yes. None of those differences you mentioned are in the brain. Why should they lead to behavioural differences?
Also: culture is not nearly as conserved as genetics. Populations can change languages within a few generations, and most culture shifts come from wanting to assimilate into the culture of the perceived elites, rather than population replacement or large-level mixing. The exceptions (European settlement in the New World, the Bantu migration, and possibly some others that don't immediately come to mind) are notable because they are the exceptions to the norm.
35 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 81.9 ms ] threadedit: I think the idea is that if you take the total set of all genes all modern humans possess, then there's only 30000 of genes the neanderthals have that aren't part of this?
(consider intra- vs inter-group differences in h sap genomes)
[edit: yeah, maybe the 30k means 30k in the parts of the population blobs which don't overlap: card(neander XOR sap)?]
Below that it suggest that 60-70% of the [distinct from other hominid ancestors] Neanderthal genome is shared with a [typical, Eurasian] modern human, which again without more careful wording clashes with general assumption that our DNA has 99.7% overlap with Neanderthals, 98% plus with modern apes (and 60% with fruit flies!)
The article states that Pääbo is described as being "a bit overwhelmed" by the attention he received after receiving the Nobel prize and he admits "It’s a bit of a burden, to be honest, all the attention I’ve been getting. But it’s a pleasant burden, and one for which I know I can’t expect much sympathy." He also mentions that at his Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, his co-workers did their best to stop the award from going to his head by "throwing him in the pond outside" and "removing his glasses and taking his phone away beforehand." Additionally, he acknowledges that the prize is as much his colleagues' prize as his, showing humility and team spirit.
I am relatively successful in that I have a job I can do, met a partner and married, and have children - so this DNA hasn't held me back in any way I can see - but does it set me apart in any ways? How many of the things that are specific to my experience of the world are shaped by this DNA?
I think Neanderthal genes are especially common if you have heritage from between east asia to europe - you share this with a lot of people.
Edit: The method they use only allows them to discover negative things. Many of these same traits probably offer some advantages as well, but they only have quantitative data on disease.
> One of the first of many surprises in his research was to find out that the genetic differences between Neanderthals and all modern humans(amounting to about 30,000) are far less than the differences between two random human beings alive today – around 3 million [bases ?]
> At least half of the Neanderthal genome – probably as much as 60 to 70% of it, Pääbo believes – is to be found in living humans
This does not compute in multiple ways. Some information is obviously missing, but all we get is these two paragraphs next to each other.
> Another surprising discovery relates to pain perception. Using data from the UK’s biobank – the world’s largest biomedical database which contains the genetic information of around half a million of the country’s citizens – Pääbo was able to establish that people with a specific Neanderthal variant are more likely to feel pain and to therefore age quicker. “It’s maybe time to rethink our idea of Neanderthals as brutish individuals,” Pääbo quips. “Maybe they were actually quite sensitive.”
Does feeling pain cause quicker aging?
Or, really, their football team. (Zing)
That’s a very strong claim without any evidence. Not only that, it’s the kind of claim that you could never have evidence for. It’s purely speculation on your part.
The mainstream accepted view on human population differences is so schizoid to me. On the one hand, you're supposed to believe that "race is a social construct", and indeed many aspects of race/ethnicity are arbitrary and socially constructed.
On the other hand, it's well documented and widely accepted that huge number of measurable and physical traits including skin color, eye color, hair color, hair consistency, face shape, height potential, facial hair growth, and susceptibility to both genetic and infectious diseases (see for example, Cystic Fibrosis and Northern Europeans, Sickle-Cell anemia and Sub-Saharan Africans), are strongly correlated with race and ancestry.
But you're supposed to believe that the same genetic variation that causes all of these physical differences between groups has no effect at all on behavioral differences. Personally, I don't understand how one can honestly reconcile that. I understand why it's not discussed in the current milieu, and I understand that it's potentially very dangerous to the existing social order, but as far as I'm concerned it's a pretty obvious thing to anyone who is willing to see it.
That’s all we’re talking about here isn’t it?
But my comment wasn't about saying any one group is "better" than another, I was just pointing out how incongruous it is to believe that population group genetics have a significant effect on physical features and disease susceptibility, while having zero effect on temperament and behavior.
Since we don't set goals for humanity at large, there's no definition of "best" to optimize for, just complex combinations of sub-behaviors that may or may not be beneficial to certain groups under certain conditions, nothing more.
> But you're supposed to believe that the same genetic variation that causes all of these physical differences between groups has no effect at all on behavioral differences.
Well, yes. None of those differences you mentioned are in the brain. Why should they lead to behavioural differences?
Also: culture is not nearly as conserved as genetics. Populations can change languages within a few generations, and most culture shifts come from wanting to assimilate into the culture of the perceived elites, rather than population replacement or large-level mixing. The exceptions (European settlement in the New World, the Bantu migration, and possibly some others that don't immediately come to mind) are notable because they are the exceptions to the norm.