
Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human and Neanderthal History - dpflan
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/?single_page=true
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bjornsing
It's amazing to me how recent these developments are, e.g. that people in
Europe looked completely different just 10000 years ago, or that just 40000
years ago a different humanoid species (Neanderthals) existed...

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fosco
>Today, surprisingly, the people carrying the most Neanderthal DNA are not in
Europe but in East Asia

Interesting, I would love to see more information on this -- I had not heard
this previously.

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ryandvm
I have not heard that either. According to 23andMe, I'm in the 99th percentile
for Neanderthal DNA variants and my ancestry report claims I'm a
disappointingly un-diverse 99.9% European.

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mc32
I don't think I'd ever hear a non white say they are disappointed with being
100% what they are, be they Asian, Black, etc. Maybe there are, I've never
home across them, but a few whites have this tendency to wish for having
"interesting" ancestry like sen. Warren.

It's something odd. As if they are somewhat uncomfortable on their own skin.
Shame is the wrong word, but i can't find the right descriptor. On the other
hand, i think this points to social pressures that make people feel that way
about themselves.

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allthenews
What you are seeing is simply a reflection of what is socially acceptable.

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mc32
So you're saying whites have the privilege of wishing they had "interesting"
DNA history, but others don't have that privilege, even with all they have in
say East Asia. I think it's more with social cues and pressures.

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allthenews
What? This isn't about privilege, this is about fashion, and white guilt is
increasingly in.

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smhost
And of course, it's not the white guilt that's in fashion. It's the black
pride that's in fashion, as it always has been.

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mc32
What? I don't get any of either those assertions. People should be comfortable
with who they are. I don't think pride is necessary, but also unnecessary and
probably detrimental is to feel uncomfortable with yourself, be that anything,
in this case ancestry.

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smhost
How can you not understand black pride? The story of the Negro that survived
the racist horrors of white oppression, the voice of the enslaved person that
became La Marseillaise sung at the Haitian revolution, that became jazz, that
became hip hop. The impossible resistance against the whitewashing and cultral
genocide, the freedom and liberty earned by wielding the spirit of the
Enlightenment channeled through the black experience. Black identity is more
American than America. Freedom from taxation against the freedom to exist.
There is no comparison. It's worthy of pride.

There's dignity in guilt, and it's essential for growth. You really don't seem
to understand the human condition.

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abiox
perhaps you were a bit too ready to bask in some romanticism to really speak
to what they were saying.

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smhost
No, that's not what happened here.

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vinc
I'd suggest watching some of the recent lectures of Svante Pääbo on YouTube
(and his papers on Google Scholar), he's very good at explaining the latest
findings.

This one for example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4TLaRSJN2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4TLaRSJN2k)

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vivekd
Okay someone explain this to me because I don't get it - how can we get the
sample of a 40 000 year old specimen and tell that it's species had interbred
with humans.

I mean - Neanderthals are pretty closely related to us us, couldn't genetic
similarities be a result of that common origin rather than interbreeding. How
can DNA tell that apart?

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evrydayhustling
Genes are never perfectly conserved; they accumulate mutations through
generations. The rate of mutations can act as a clock, telling us how far back
was the common origin of two genes that are similar today.

When we see modern populations that carry neanderthal genes that are better
conserved within the population than some human-specific genes are with other
human populations, we can infer that the neanderthal intermixing happened
after humans became... human.

At large scale, many such inferences can be combined to form a historical map
of population mixing and the migrations implied... That's what the research in
the article is about.

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jack6e
In another story popular on HN yesterday/today about DNA [0], some of the
commenters discussed epigenetics, and the fact that the DNA sequence is simply
the "hardware" that encodes what is possible for cells to produce, but there
is "software", if you will, above that which determines how sequences of DNA
are actually expressed.

In these cases of analyzing really old DNA where only the DNA remains, I
wonder how researchers make decisions about selecting what they want to
express between varying attributes? I.e., the example used in the article
about representing "Cheddar Man" \- did they have some basis for selecting the
traits to visualize or was it arbitrary?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16589412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16589412)

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laretluval
I'm not sure the hardware/software analogy is useful. It's more like DNA is
source code with a bunch of if statements that depend on the chemical
environment the cell is in.

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jack6e
Sorry if that is wrong, I'm just repeating the metaphor used by the more
educated people in that other thread to the best of my understanding.

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evrydayhustling
What an awesome antidote to today's depressing story about white nationalists
coopting Black Panther as an affirmation of ethnicity-based political states.
If science can keep reminding people how random and fragile current ethnic or
national divisions are in the face of time, maybe more people will focus on
building knowledge that lasts longer.

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haihaibye
I'm interested in comparing your perspective with the people in favor of
ethnicity-based political states.

I imagine they want a future where their genes carry on while you are
interested in "knowledge that lasts"

You could say they are gene-centric and you are meme-centric?

Of two futures, which would you prefer?

1\. Where your descendants/relatives are alive but have little in common with
your values (eg compare bronze age to now)

2\. You have no genetic descendants/relatives but whatever exists (robots,
aliens, planet of the apes) shares your value system.

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staplers
Are you suggesting that by mating with similar 'ethnicity' that someones genes
are more likely to carry on? I thought it was common knowledge that more
diverse DNA has a better chance at survival.

Seems like you're suggesting inbreeding is favorable for procreation.

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ardfie
According to this source, third-cousin pairings are the sweet spot

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-incest-is-
be...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-incest-is-best-kissi/)

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kypro
Thanks for sharing. That's fascinating, I would have never expected that.

