Look, it’s summer, every second day is Slow Newsday. At The Daily Mail (22nd August 2011), Fiona Macrae asks, “Was the human race given an ever-lasting boost by breeding with Neanderthal man?”:
We like to think our superior brainpower means we survived while they perished. But we may not have been alive today, if it were not for the Neanderthals.
How so?
Interbreeding with Neanderthals gave our ancestors a ready-made cocktail of DNA invaluable in fighting diseases common in northern climates, research by immunologist Peter Parham suggests.
You know it’s screen writing when “suggests” replaces “determined.”
This, in turn, vastly sped up our evolution, and gave us the strength and resilience needed to populate the world.
And it didn’t do anything of the kind for the ‘Thals? Guys, there’s a hole in our story here.
Professor Parham, of the respected Stanford University in California, focused on a family of 200-plus genes called human leukocyte antigens that are key to the workings of the immune system.
He showed that some of our HLA genes are identical to those that were found in Neanderthals.
That’s it! Once the source is unimpeachable, forget the hole. Start shooting first thing tomorrow.
Physicist Rob Sheldon, who watches the series, has asked: Are Neanderthals – or are they not – a distinct species?
Shush, Rob. If it were generally admitted that Neanderthals are not a distinct species, we’d have to cancel the series. Interspecies sex hints keep up media interest. Take that away, and it’s just boring old science.
File with: In this episode, an early industrial revolution was the closing curtain for Neanderthals
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