Genetic Differences Between Humans and Neanderthals
An international group of scientists completed a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome in May 2010. The results indicate some breeding between humans and Neanderthals, as the genomes of non-African humans have 1-4% more in common with Neanderthals than do the genomes of subsaharan Africans. Neanderthals and most humans share a lactose-intolerant variant of the lactase gene that encodes an enzyme that is unable to break down lactose in milk after weaning. Humans and Neanderthals also share the FOXP2 gene variant associated with brain development and with speech in humans, indicating that Neanderthals may have been able to speak. Chimps have two amino acid differences in FOXP2 compared with human and Neanderthal FOXP2.
Read more about this topic: Human Evolutionary Genetics
Famous quotes containing the words genetic, differences and/or humans:
“What strikes many twin researchers now is not how much identical twins are alike, but rather how different they are, given the same genetic makeup....Multiples don’t walk around in lockstep, talking in unison, thinking identical thoughts. The bond for normal twins, whether they are identical or fraternal, is based on how they, as individuals who are keenly aware of the differences between them, learn to relate to one another.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)
“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)