A paper published in Nature today, "The diverse origins of the human gene pool" by Svante Pääbo (Nature Reviews Genetics 16, 313–314 (2015) doi:10.1038/nrg3954) is behind a paywall but is quite intriguing, at least to me: the abstract states that:
Analyses of the genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, suggest that our ancestors were part of a web of now-extinct populations linked by limited, but intermittent or sometimes perhaps even persistent, gene flow.
In other words... there was flow between Humans and our other relatives. Furthermore this website gives more details:
Human origins debate: Did diversity evolve exclusively in Africa?
Svante Paabo | May 18, 2015 | Nature
Analyses of the genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, suggest that our ancestors were part of a web of now-extinct populations linked by limited, but intermittent or sometimes perhaps even persistent, gene flow.
For decades, paleontologists intensely debated how ‘modern humans’ — that is, the direct ancestors of all humans alive today — originated. One view was that modern humans emerged recently in Africa from which they spread worldwide and replaced all other forms of humans, or ‘hominins’, without mixing with them — a process that ended some 30–40 thousand years ago. Another view favoured regional continuity under which hominins in different parts of the world evolved more or less independently over hundreds of thousands or millions of years into present-day humans, with some gene flow between them. This debate was so intense because it bears on the fundamental question of when and where modern humans originated, but it is also of importance for guiding how we should think about the genetic variation in the current human gene pool — does it all go back to variation that accumulated exclusively in Africa, or does it have deep roots elsewhere as well?
I am dying to read more... but will have to wait for others to disclose more details.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2015 by Austin Whittall ©
Hi Austin, I read this post on the Denisova cave discovery and it inspired me to have a look on the net to see if any other researchers had used the results in other DNA studies and came across an interesting news item on archaeology news. The link is: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/researchers-show-how-our-sense-of-smell.html?m=1
ReplyDeleteA link leads to a paper behind a paywall at:
http://m.chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/06/13/chemse.bjv030
It is VERY interesting. I just wondered what your take on it is?
NeilB
Thanks for the comment. I had seen the paper in the news but it is out of reach, I have been doing some research hoping for it to be unlocked by some other blogger.
ReplyDeleteAnyway today's post gives my point of view on this Olfactor Receptor ...
this is interesting
ReplyDelete