Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Neanderthal Y chromo genes disappeared?

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

From ScienceDaily:

Although it’s widely known that modern humans carry traces of Neanderthal DNA, a new international study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes disappeared from the human genome long ago.

Apparently, 2.5 to 4 percent of DNA sequences are thought be from Neanderthals.

Question: Has anyone tried doing that with any other discrete group?

Why is not yet clear. The Neanderthal Y chromosome genes could have simply drifted out of the human gene pool by chance over the millennia. Another possibility, said Mendez, is that Neanderthal Y chromosomes include genes that are incompatible with other human genes, and he and his colleagues have found evidence supporting this idea. Indeed, one of the Y chromosome genes that differ in Neanderthals has previously been implicated in transplant rejection when males donate organs to women.

Okay, but that’s not a whole lot to go on. The team is planning further experiments. More. Paper. (public access)

Follow UD News at Twitter!

This from The Scientist:

While many people today possess some Neanderthal DNA, the Neanderthal Y chromosome has not been found in modern humans; the researchers suspect it has likely gone extinct.

“That could be one reason why we don’t see Neanderthal Y chromosomes in modern human populations,” Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, U.K., who was not involved in the study told New Scientist.

File:A small cup of coffee.JPGBut could just one guy stumbling into the gene sampling clinic to get out of the blizzard and sober up with some free coffee and donuts upset all that…  ? 😉

For example, brain imaging studies have turned up some really weird brains in apparently normal people.

New Scientist knows that the missing Y chromosome kept us apart from the Neanderthals:

It seems we were genetically incompatible with our ancient relatives – and male fetuses conceived through sex with Neanderthal males would have miscarried.

Hey, it’s interesting, but we’ll see.

And weird. Looking at the artists’ impression NS offers of the Neanderthal, I figure we always need a few guys like that on the team. In case it gets serious and someone thinks we are kidding.

See also: Neanderthal Man: The long-lost relative turns up again, this time with documents

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
Yes, this was fascinating. But more interesting question for me would be, who were the Daddies of the Neanderthals or should we speculate Nephilim ? No matter what, as time pants on, research everywhere is revealing and exposing so many fascinating things. On a sort of related note, has anyone seen this documentary on the history of Piltdown man hoax and how it infected science ? They bring up the subject of a sort of evolutionary science competition between Brits with Piltdown man and Germans with Neanderthal man. Interesting program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHk6m0K6O5k&nohtml5=False And here is Nova's official commentary on their site. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hoax/ Wonder how much research based on this fraud has never been erased from the books and still colors research today ?earthsinterface
April 10, 2016
April
04
Apr
10
10
2016
12:11 AM
12
12
11
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply