First rough draft of Neandertal genome completed- Science of human past
German scientists announced the first rough draft of the genome of our closest relatives, Neanderthals. Leading the team, Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology made this announcement through a video conference to reporters assembled at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The team has successfully decode 3.7 billion bases of of Neandertal DNA from a 38,000-year-old bone of a female Neandertal fossil discovered in Vindija cave in Croatia, which is expected to provide more insights into human evolution.This accounts for 67 % of total genome of closest relatives of humans and rest is to be completed by the year end.
Neandertals are our closest relatives on the hominid family tree,who split from us some 300,000 years ago and it is believed that both modern humans along with Neandertals coexisted for 475,000 years or so. It is believed that Neandertals gone extinct some 30,000 years ago ,largely due to climate changes and some scientists are of the opinion that modern humans is responsible for the extinction of neandertals race.
Studying the genome of Neandertals is very important as it will help us understand what makes us modern humans ,as Neaderthals represent the last divergent branch of the human evolutionary tree.By analyzing the genome of Neandertals and comparing with that of modern humans will reveal intricate details of human evolution.The study can also gives an important account on look and many more details about our closest relatives.
The scientists studying the genome were helped by the company 454 Life Sciences, which invented a new DNA decoding machine that works by analyzing millions of very small fragments of DNA in parallel.Decoding the genome of Neandertal also raised questions of bringing back the lost human race to life ,which according to many scientists is not feasible and will remain technically impossible.Its simply doesn’t make sense also to get Neandertals back to life -What is that you are going to do with Neandertals ? Keep them in ZOO ????
Related articles :
NY times : Scientists in Germany Draft Neanderthal Genome
Newscientist: Neanderthal genome already giving up its secrets
Tech tribe : What Makes Us Human? Completed Neanderthal Genome Holds Clues
Science News : First rough draft of Neandertal genome released
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Acituis / FlickR
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