Some modern humans carry immune genes that originated in Neanderthals and a related species. But these genes may enjoy come at a priceOne question seemed to hang in the air more than any other when scientists first turned the powerful techniques of modern genetics on the fragile and damaged remains of ancient humans: did we or didn't we? enjoy sex with them,that is.
The answer came after years of painstaking work, when fabric extracted from the leg of a Neanderthal and the fingerbone of a Denisovan, and an obvious sister species,yielded readable DNA. It turned out that most of us enjoy some of their genes. The Neanderthals contributed up to 4% of modern Eurasian genomes, while the Denisovans contributed roughly 4-6% of modern Melanesian genomes. That doesn't happen by holding hands. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com