Two fire-scarred circular structures found hidden in a cave in France have altered scientists’ perceptions of our early human cousins, the Neanderthals. What these almost 200,000 year-old sophisticated structures were used for remains unknown, but their discovery, described in the journal Nature, ...
Tag: neanderthal
March 31, 2016
A Conversation with Population Geneticist David Poznik
This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to some of 23andMe’s scientists. Population geneticist David Poznik came to 23andMe after working in Carlos Bustamante’s lab at Stanford University. Originally from Massachusetts, David earned an undergraduate degree in Biophysics at ...
March 24, 2016
A Conversation with 23andMe’s Ivan Jurić
This interview is part of an occasional series of profiles introducing you to some of the scientists at 23andMe. Ivan Jurić studied molecular biology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and went on to get his PhD in ecology and evolution at the University of Tennessee. He did his postdoctoral work in the ...
February 24, 2016
Blast from the Past
The ability to extract and then sequence ancient DNA, not just from ancient human bones, but also from the bones of our ancient cousins the Neanderthals, is upending old notions of human migration and history. The latest in a rapid succession of new findings suggests that intermixing between Neanderthals ...
February 18, 2016
The Lasting Legacy of Neanderthals
New research by scientists at Vanderbilt University adds to our understanding of the legacy of our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals. The study looked specifically at health conditions, finding associations between Neanderthal DNA and conditions related to immune response, blood clotting, and depression by ...
January 13, 2016
The Neanderthal Advantage
We might not give Neanderthals much respect, but modern humans probably owe our survival, at least in part, to our now-extinct short and burly ancient cousins. A new study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology — the same team that just a few years ago first sequenced a ...
December 9, 2015
Olympic Search
Fast and sure on the ice, Olympic gold medalist Apolo Anton Ohno was less sure about his ancestral background. Raised by a single father, who’d immigrated to the United States from Japan, Apolo didn’t know much about his mother’s side of the family. On a recent episode of the syndicated family history ...
November 9, 2015
Science’s Rock Stars
Seth McFarlane brought the humor, Pharrell Williams the glam, and this year’s winners of the Breakthrough Prize brought the wonder of science. At a glitzy awards ceremony broadcast live from Silicon Valley Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel, the winners were singled out for their ...
June 11, 2015
Good Morning Friend
They’ve been friends since the first grade, so Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, YouTube stars with their own daily show, decided to see if there might be some deeper explanation for their tight bond. On a recent episode of their popular show “Good Mythical Morning” the two looked at their 23andMe results ...
February 11, 2015
Meeting At the Crossroads
A skull found in a previously undisturbed cave in Israel may hold important new evidence not just about when modern humans migrated out of Africa, but also when and where they crossed paths and may have mixed with our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, according to a paper published last month by scientists ...
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