Extinct Humans Passed High-Altitude Gene to Tibetans (opens in new tab)

(phenomena.nationalgeographic.com)

87 pointsericpan11y ago24 comments

24 comments

Readers who are interested in this kind of thing may be interested in the new book by Svante Pääbo, Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes.[1] Pääbo was the first researcher to figure out how to sequence DNA from ancient human beings, starting with Egyptian mummies and eventually leading to the complete sequencing of Neanderthal nuclear genomes.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Svante-P%C3%A4%C3%A4bo/e/B00GJ9XR7O/

walterbell11y ago

That's also a good book on the politics of such research.

"The Neanderthals Rediscovered", by Papagianni and Morse, has a good chronology of the species based on what is known to date.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0500051771/

defen11y ago

Perhaps not entirely surprising, when you consider how much better Tibetan high-altitude adapations are when compared to Andean people's. So the idea that they evolved in the span of 3,000 years seems suspect. Very interesting that they seem to have picked them up from a relict population - perhaps this is related to the Yeti stories?

winestock11y ago

Greg Cochran has been making that argument for some time now. Here's his take on the issue: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/rasmus-nielsen/

mtdewcmu11y ago

I wondered this about Neanderthals, now Denisovans: in what sense are they extinct if their progeny still walk the Earth?

meric11y ago

The same sense dinosaurs are extinct while their progeny still walk/fly on earth.

mtdewcmu11y ago

That is a different sense. Totally different timescales, and dinosaurs were many species.

1 more reply

sliverstorm11y ago

Easy. Tibetans are humans, with a small contribution of special adaptations from another species.

A human that has one Neanderthal gene is not a Neanderthal. Therefore, Neanderthals are still extinct.

mtdewcmu11y ago

How many Neanderthal genes make a Neanderthal?

1 more reply

kinleyd11y ago

There's a subgroup of Asians spanning the Himalayas and east Asia that have blue bottommed babies that is generally believed to denote an ancestry that shares Genghis Khan, iirc. Anyone know whether this group is the same as the one that shares the Denisovan gene?

There's one other thing that I think people living in the Himalayas have, myself included, that helps and that is proportionately humongous lungs. This is probably evolution at work over the course of centuries.

hcarvalhoalves11y ago

> There's a subgroup of Asians spanning the Himalayas and east Asia that have blue bottommed babies

That's funny. I had to Google it because I never heard about that before, but apparently it's extremely common!

According to Wikipedia this trait is common not only on asians but also native americans, so it predates Genghis Khan.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot#Prevalence

kinleyd11y ago

That makes sense actually, given the belief that native Americans came from central Asia before the ice melted on the Bering Straits. When you compare native Americans with Asians from around the Himalayan region, the features are strikingly similar. I wonder if native Americans also have the high altitude gene at the same level of probability as Tibetans, given their shared blue bottoms? :)

1 more reply

qwerta11y ago

> Extinct Humans Passed High-Altitude Gene to Tibetans

Extinct? Hmmm. Get over it we are partly neanderthals, denisovans and so on.

alexandros11y ago

...And I can't. Not yet anyway. Not until we clone one of them.

gnerd11y ago

Pity we didn't acquire Neanderthal genes for their 1600 cc brains, the largest of any primate species found to date. [1]

Edit: Apologies to the downvoter, I should have substantiated that claim. I have added a source.

[1] http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/society/neanderthal-m...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

24 comments

tokenadult11y ago

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Svante-P%C3%A4%C3%A4bo/e/B00GJ9XR7O/

walterbell11y ago

That's also a good book on the politics of such research.

"The Neanderthals Rediscovered", by Papagianni and Morse, has a good chronology of the species based on what is known to date.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0500051771/

defen11y ago

winestock11y ago

Greg Cochran has been making that argument for some time now. Here's his take on the issue: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/rasmus-nielsen/

mtdewcmu11y ago

I wondered this about Neanderthals, now Denisovans: in what sense are they extinct if their progeny still walk the Earth?

meric11y ago

The same sense dinosaurs are extinct while their progeny still walk/fly on earth.

mtdewcmu11y ago

That is a different sense. Totally different timescales, and dinosaurs were many species.

1 more reply

sliverstorm11y ago

Easy. Tibetans are humans, with a small contribution of special adaptations from another species.

A human that has one Neanderthal gene is not a Neanderthal. Therefore, Neanderthals are still extinct.

mtdewcmu11y ago

How many Neanderthal genes make a Neanderthal?

1 more reply

kinleyd11y ago

hcarvalhoalves11y ago

> There's a subgroup of Asians spanning the Himalayas and east Asia that have blue bottommed babies

That's funny. I had to Google it because I never heard about that before, but apparently it's extremely common!

According to Wikipedia this trait is common not only on asians but also native americans, so it predates Genghis Khan.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot#Prevalence

kinleyd11y ago

1 more reply

qwerta11y ago

> Extinct Humans Passed High-Altitude Gene to Tibetans

Extinct? Hmmm. Get over it we are partly neanderthals, denisovans and so on.

alexandros11y ago

...And I can't. Not yet anyway. Not until we clone one of them.

gnerd11y ago

Pity we didn't acquire Neanderthal genes for their 1600 cc brains, the largest of any primate species found to date. [1]

Edit: Apologies to the downvoter, I should have substantiated that claim. I have added a source.

[1] http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/society/neanderthal-m...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse