400,000-Year-Old Hominin DNA Throws Everything We Know About Human Evolution Into Disarray

[applegrove]

400,000-Year-Old Hominin DNA Throws Everything We Know About Human Evolution Into Disarray

by Jennifer Welsh at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/400000-year-old-human-dna-in-pit-of-bones-2013-12

"SNIP..................................


But the new genetic information published Dec. 4 in the journal Nature has thrown that assumption into question.

The researchers used a completely new technique to isolate the DNA from a thigh bone, which they say wouldn't even have been possible a year ago.

Previously, the oldest human DNA ever sequenced was a paltry 100,000 years old.

The genetic material they sequenced is not the DNA we traditionally think of but the specialized DNA that runs our cell's energy-making machine (the mitochondria) and is passed down only from the mother.

This mitochondrial DNA indicated that these ancient humans, though they looked like Neanderthals, were more genetically related (or, at least their mitochondria were) to another ancient human species, the Denisovians.



..................................SNIP"

[TheDebbieDee]

1. This DNA test is the work of the debbil. Everyone knows that the universe

is only 6,000 years old!

[el_bryanto]

2. well 6,012 to be precise. nt

[Botany]

3. misleading headline

..... this does not change everything we know about human evolution but
it is one more piece in the puzzle.

[Coyotl]

4. Another hyperbolic title for a science article.

Is science just too complicated for humans?

Seriously. Disarray my petunias! Not if you are informed and educated.

It should be of no surprise to anyone that DNA can travel 6,000 miles in 300,000 years. Do the math!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. Science is less important than selling stories....

Even if the "story" is an interview with an asshole.

[Silent3]

14. It's just this kind of stupid hyberbole that helps science deniers feel smug in their denial...

...since "clearly" nothing science tells us really stands up over time, those so-called scientists keep changing their minds about everything!

[Coyotl]

16. Science is the opposite of disarray.

I guess the really important implications of the story escape the writer.

[pscot]

5. And Homo Erectus seems to have hung around

Until as recently as 13,000 bp. The more they learn, the more complicated it gets. Thanks for posting.

[applegrove]

6. I'm glad I can't keep all the hominids straight because it seems the scientists can't either. I love

this stuff. Too cool.

[WCGreen]

7. Hell I saw a Home Erectus a couple of nights ago on HBO...

[pscot]

9. If he was more than 3 feet tall

it was probably a different guy.

[zeemike]

13. I did not think HBO showed those kind of movies.

But what dp I know, porn is all over the place.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. Could be worse....

Meet Homo Slackass Erectus:

[warrant46]

19. Hey I've seen that guy

He hangs around the mall.

[Coyotl]

15. Wasn't H. erectus, around 1.8 million years ago, dispersing everywhere in the Old World?

And less than one million ago transitioning to new species designations, with even earlier divergences and essentially a global gene pool ever since, hobbits excepted. Of course, our paleo gene pool had eras of separation and of renewed combination, combined with fluctuating demographics.

[pscot]

18. For Hobbits, see H. Floresiensis

Who seem to have been dwarf h. erectus.

[warrior1]

8. There was no racial bigotry with our ancestors

They liked getting it on with everybody.

[Maraya1969]

10. Yes they did

Just like this......Voila'

:

That's Homo-frogosis in there. Will be discovered soon.

[PD Turk]

12. Is that dude from Duck Dynasty?

...in the pic, on the right?

[SidDithers]

20. I'm pretty sure that "Everything We Know About Human Evolution" hasn't been thrown into disarray...

but this is really interesting anyway.

Thanks for posting.

Sid