An article in the New York Times tells the story of a pinky finger found in a Siberian Cave. According to the article the tip of the finger found is about 40,000 years old and gives insight to a new origin of humans. The bone of the girl's pinky was genetically sequenced, from which scientists concluded that the finger belonged to a group known as Denisovans, who lived in Asia and vanished about 30,000 years ago. According to a paper published in the science journal Nature, after sequencing of the genome it has been noted that this group does share a common origin with Neanderthals, however, they were not involved in the gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians. Based on the two articles and the evidence presented I do not believe there is enough evidence to gather any concrete conclusion or suggest that the Denisovans are part of the human origin.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
New Human Origins Discovered?
An article in the New York Times tells the story of a pinky finger found in a Siberian Cave. According to the article the tip of the finger found is about 40,000 years old and gives insight to a new origin of humans. The bone of the girl's pinky was genetically sequenced, from which scientists concluded that the finger belonged to a group known as Denisovans, who lived in Asia and vanished about 30,000 years ago. According to a paper published in the science journal Nature, after sequencing of the genome it has been noted that this group does share a common origin with Neanderthals, however, they were not involved in the gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians. Based on the two articles and the evidence presented I do not believe there is enough evidence to gather any concrete conclusion or suggest that the Denisovans are part of the human origin.
Labels:
Genetics,
genome,
Neanderthal
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