As modern humans migrated out of Africa, they interbred with Neanderthals. All non-Africans carry some remnant of those ancient encounters, and <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1006340&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+plosgenetics%2FNewArticles+(PLOS+Genetics+-+New+Articles)">new research </a>by scientists at the University of California, Davis, shows how natural selection has purged all but the smallest bits of that ancient DNA. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-20253" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Neanderthal_model.jpg" alt="" width="1" height="1" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Neanderthal_model.jpg 260w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Neanderthal_model-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1px) 100vw, 1px" /><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25884" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AN_38417240-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AN_38417240-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AN_38417240-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AN_38417240-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/AN_38417240.jpg 900w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
In one of the first efforts to estimate the impact of hybridization between humans and Neanderthals, Ivan Juric and his former colleagues at Graham Coop’s Lab at UC Davis used a new method for estimating the strength of natural selection against Neanderthal genetic variants. These variants would have been deleterious for the success of modern human survival.
<h2>Mixing with Neanderthal</h2>
The work also offers new insight into early interbreeding and why only a small amount of Neanderthal DNA remains in all non-Africans today.
While modern humans may have benefited from that early interbreeding, Neanderthal DNA included some deleterious gene variants, and over time, natural selection removed large numbers of those variants that would have had mildly negative impacts, said Ivan, who is now a statistical biologist and population geneticist at 23andMe.
If those gene variants were problematic, then why weren’t they weeded out of Neanderthals through the same process of natural selection?<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23695" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-208x300.jpg" alt="Ivan Juric, PhD" width="300" height="434" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-208x300.jpg 208w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-768x1110.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-709x1024.jpg 709w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-609x880.jpg 609w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-817x1180.jpg 817w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ivan-Juric-scaled.jpg 1772w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
According to Ivan, it all has to do with numbers.
The population of Neanderthals was very small, while the humans who migrated out of Africa reached a much larger population. As the two distinct populations interbreed, the deleterious Neanderthal genetic variants that entered the larger modern human population were subject to a stronger natural selection than they were in Neanderthals.
<h2>Neanderthal DNA</h2>
While some Neanderthal genetic variants remained that would have been beneficial for human survival, most of the ones that had a negative impact disappeared.
While explaining why so little Neanderthal DNA remains in modern humans, the research also confirms previous reports that East Asian people had somewhat higher initial levels of Neanderthal ancestry than Europeans. These findings shed new light on the role of population size in losing or maintaining Neanderthal ancestry in humans and add to our understanding of our close relatives—the Neanderthals.
Here&#8217;s a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/science/neanderthal-dna-natural-selection.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=science&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=2&amp;pgtype=sectionfront">New York Times article </a>on the new research.
23andMe customers can explore their own Neanderthal DNA <a href="https://you.23andme.com/reports/neanderthal/">here</a>. Not yet a customer? Find out more <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/#toc-neanderthal">here</a>.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

New Neanderthal Research

Two fire-scarred circular structures found hidden in a cave in France have altered scientists’ perceptions of our early human cousins, the Neanderthals.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23993" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-300x180.jpg" alt="6000" width="300" height="180" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-300x180.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-768x461.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-880x528.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000-1180x708.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6000.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
What these almost 200,000 year-old sophisticated structures were used for remains unknown, but their discovery, described in<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature18291.html"> the journal Nature</a>, illustrates a level of planning and organization among Neanderthal that was not known before.
“Our results therefore suggest that the Neanderthal group responsible for these constructions had a level of social organization that was more complex than previously thought,” the paper’s authors conclude.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23459 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Neanderthal-Image-247x300.jpg" alt="Neanderthal Image" width="247" height="300" />This adds to our understanding of our ancient human cousin, and what distinguishes them from modern humans. It’s another bit of evidence to suggest that Neanderthals were more advanced than we once thought. Neanderthals thrived in Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years before early modern humans migrated out of Africa. At some point humans and Neanderthals crossed paths, and as shown in recent DNA studies, they intermixed. Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago, but their DNA lives on in all humans outside of Africa.
This finding, at the Bruniquel Cave in southwest France, illustrates Neanderthals may have been much more advanced than we once thought.  Over the last few years other findings have indicated that Neanderthals created tools and jewelry, and ritually buried their dead.
In the cave researchers documented how the stalagmites were each chopped into similar heights of a little over a foot high, and then arranged into two oval shapes. This was done a few hundred feet inside the cave where light didn’t penetrate, and there was evidence that they used animal bones for torches. Along the structures are specific sites that show evidence of the use of fire. There are no indications that the cave was used as a dwelling or shelter, so the purpose of the site is still a mystery. But it’s construction with hundreds of evenly cut pieces, arranged in a specific pattern, necessitated some planning.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23992" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-300x112.jpg" alt="2090" width="300" height="112" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-300x112.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-768x286.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-1024x381.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-880x328.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090-1180x439.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2090.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Why Neanderthals – and another ancient cousin the Denisovans – died out and modern humans survived is a question that scientists are still trying to answer. Many of the revelations around these two ancient human cousins have been made through the use of DNA. Some suggest that intermixing with Neanderthals – which occurred about 60,000 years ago – may have helped give modern humans an <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/the-lasting-legacy-of-neanderthals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">evolutionary advantage </a>perhaps giving them a better immune response against disease as they migrated into Europe and Asia.
Understanding the traits we shared with our ancient cousins, and those we did not, will help us better understand why we survived and thrived and the Neanderthals did not, and ultimately it will help us to better understand what makes us human.

Neanderthals Were More Advanced Than Once Believed

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 <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23687" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-234x300.jpg" alt="David Poznik" width="300" height="385" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-234x300.jpg 234w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-768x986.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-798x1024.jpg 798w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-686x880.jpg 686w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-920x1180.jpg 920w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/David-Poznik-scaled.jpg 1995w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />after working in <a href="https://bustamantelab.stanford.edu/">Carlos Bustamante’s lab</a> at Stanford University. 
Originally from Massachusetts, David earned an undergraduate degree in Biophysics at Brown. An avid traveler and backpacker, David has taken a couple years off to explore Asia and South America. These trips bookended his time as a Senior Research Analyst at Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center where, among other projects, he led the analyses for a few early GWAS studies. Upon returning from South America, he went on to earn a master’s degree in Statistics and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford. While working in Bustamante’s lab, David became an expert on the Y chromosome. He maintains strong interests in DNA sequencing, ancient DNA, and algorithm development.
Tell us about your education:

I primarily studied math and physics in my first two years at Brown, but I grew increasingly excited about the biology classes I was taking on the side, so I started shifting focus. By the end of college, I was splitting my time between biology and physics, and my research in computational neuroscience was somewhere in between, so I ended up majoring in Biophysics. After college, I conducted the analyses for a number of genetic epidemiology studies at Harvard, but I returned to school in order to gain formal training in statistics and computer science. At Stanford, I earned an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics.


What’s your job title and role here at 23andMe?

I am a Computational Biologist and Population Geneticist at 23andMe. Within the Research Team, I work in the Ancestry group. We develop and improve methods to extract insights about customers’ ancestry from their genotypes.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">David Poznik, Computational Biologist, Population Geneticist

Originally from: Massachusetts
Education:

BA: Biophysics, Brown University

MA: Statistics, Stanford University

PhD: Biomedical Informatics, Stanford University

Fun Fact: &#8220;I spent about 25 percent of the decade between college and graduate school backpacking around the world, including a 16-month journey across Asia and a 7-month trip through South America.&#8221;
</div>

What were you working on before you came to 23andMe?

Before joining 23andMe I was in graduate school, taking as many statistics and computer science classes as I could, while conducting research in population genetics. Most of my graduate research was focused on using Y-chromosome sequences to learn about human history. For example, as a component of the <a href="http://www.1000genomes.org/">1000 Genomes Project</a>, our analysis of 1,244 Y-chromosomes revealed multiple historical bursts of extreme expansions in male numbers. Most recently, I developed a pipeline to process and analyze the targeted sequences of several hundred Y chromosomes from diverse African populations.


What are you working on now at 23andMe?

My first project at 23andMe is to develop and test a new algorithm to identify customers’ Y-chromosome haplogroups, with the goal of updating our ancestry reports.


Why are you excited about genetics? 
I am most excited about genetics because of the vast amount of historical and anthropological information encoded in our genomes. Beginning with the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5313.html">pioneering work</a> of Luca Cavalli-Sforza in the 1960’s, the field of genetics has made substantial contributions toward our understanding of the past.
In some cases these findings have confirmed pictures drawn previously by long-established disciplines such as archaeology and linguistics, but in many cases, and with increasing regularity, genetics has added wholly new elements. Two recent technological developments are driving much of the most recent work: high-throughput sequencing and methods to extract DNA from the remains of people and archaic humans who lived <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26595274">thousands</a>, or even <a href="https://www.mpg.de/10364707/hominins-sima-de-los-huesos">hundreds of thousands</a>, of years ago. Together, these tools have led to a far greater understanding of the history of our species than was thought possible just a decade ago.


Tell us about one of your interesting findings in your previous scientific life.

When I started graduate school, I had the good fortune to have access to some of the first high-throughput sequencing of globally diverse populations. I developed methods to analyze and interpret the Y-chromosome data, and I built <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4032117/figure/F2/">a tree</a> relating the sequences. The root of this tree represents the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of the Y chromosomes in the study, and the branches represent shared paternal ancestry of increasingly smaller subsets of the sample, terminating at the leaves, which represent individual sequences.
Thanks in large part to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11062480">seminal work</a> of Peter Underhill, much was already known about the topological structure of this tree–the branching patterns that reflect the relationships between the various lineages. But, in contrast to prior work, the full sequence data enabled me to measure the distances between each of the subtrees, or “clades.” These distances are represented by the branch lengths of the tree, with longer branches indicating greater temporal separation. With full sequences, we can infer the time to the MRCA of any pair of Y chromosomes. The MRCA of all extant human Y chromosomes–the root of the tree relating the Y chromosomes of all living men, including carriers of the recently discovered “A00” haplogroup–lived ~275 thousand years ago.
One interesting fact people don’t usually guess about me is:

Something my peers in graduate school never would have suspected is that before returning to school, I actually had a great work-life balance. Since joining 23andMe a few months ago, most of my evenings and weekends have been back at Stanford wrapping up a few papers, but I’m quite excited to start getting out of lab again!


Did you learn anything interesting from your 23andMe results? Did you make any changes as a result of taking the test?
A close friend learned from her 23andMe results that she was heterozygous for <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/health-traits/three-genes-for-blood-clots/">Factor V Leiden</a>, and she shared this genetic result with her doctor. In 2010, her doctor found it quite the novelty for a patient to walk into her office, genotypes in hand. She advised my friend that, due to her increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism, she should go off the pill, and my friend complied, reasoning that this was a relatively easy change in light of the potential risk. This event was actually my first window into the power and potential of direct-to-consumer genetics.


What’s one thing the average consumer should know about genetics?

The Y chromosome is remarkable in that it is the longest stretch of non-recombining DNA in the human genome, by orders of magnitude. Because this giant chunk of DNA is transmitted in whole from father to son through the generations, it contains sufficient information to build a detailed phylogenetic tree. At 23andMe, we can tell you where your paternal ancestry fits into this larger context.

A Conversation with Population Geneticist David Poznik

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-23616" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Screen-shot-2016-01-22-at-12.33.27-PM.jpg" alt="" width="232" height="288" />
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.
<h2>Ancient DNA</h2>
The latest in a rapid succession of<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/evidence-mounts-for-interbreeding-bonanza-in-ancient-human-species-1.19394#Early"> new findings</a> suggests that intermixing between Neanderthals and early modern humans happened earlier than we once thought – about <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16544.epdf?referrer_access_token=CMEgDNGJuW7rNIX8-5DetdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MInt_2jYvKBG--7sOqWdGTzUvToNHVvyhzE6mZLLgJJmR7yoinCDiE3vg9Q5AVA-nZquOQOOQnhcfdq9lCTp4TcwdkXstlNRZ7xfdZRcnYB6sIPffF_OSID_rECaKCbx-nDNFAoD9EQPv4N_1WWd-A8l0yEwuBeZ6eFt0-g5i0T9MPLVmGCIKRPC0jEsDeYZxD78jhZvPiTcPMjQJT5jr-&amp;tracking_referrer=www.nature.com">100,000 years ago</a> versus <a href="http://sriramsankararaman.com/publications/sankararaman.pgen.2012.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50,000 years ago</a> – at a time that challenges long held theories about when humans migrated out of Africa and how far those migrations took them. And by looking at DNA sequences extracted from several different Neanderthal bones, researchers discovered that the gene flow didn’t just go from Neanderthals to humans.
This latest finding illustrates the impact DNA data, specifically data from ancient DNA, has had. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/15/svante-paabo-dna-neanderthal-genetics">Svante Paabo</a> of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology pioneered this innovation for extracting ancient DNA and accurately sequencing, and it radically transformed our understanding of human history.
<h2>New Information About the Past</h2>
Harvard population geneticist David Reich puts this new innovation into context in a long interview he did with<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/david_reich-the-genomic-ancient-dna-revolution"> The Edge</a>. Reich, who studies genetic variation among human populations, said that scientists have gained great new insights into history by comparing ancient DNA sequences to present-day humans’ genetic data.
“It’s a radically new type of information about the past; it’s a great gift to be able to have access to it,” Reich said in the interview. “It’s a great surprise. Who would have thought DNA survived that long?”
Probably the most profound insight from looking at ancient DNA and making comparisons with data from modern humans is that all human populations today are mixed.
<h2>Neanderthals and Modern Humans</h2>
This isn’t just about mixing between humans and Neanderthals, but mixing among early human populations and that data offers great insight into human history. He’s also looked at non-ancient human DNA to garner similar insights. So for example, Reich has looked at populations in India where they found that populations mixed there between 2000 to 4000 years ago. Before that there were unmixed populations.
“Amazingly, what you could see from the genetic data was an event in which you could see cultural change,” he said.
You can see something similar in more recent history by looking at the DNA of African Americans, which includes European ancestry, a clear mark of the slavery in the United States.
“What you’re seeing in the imprint of these populations genetically is the history of power inequality, which is usually males of power from one group having preferential access to local females, and that’s what you see in these groups,” Reich said.
Listen to Reich’s interview below.
The Edge Foundation, also has a video of his interview on its site<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/david_reich-the-genomic-ancient-dna-revolution"> here</a>.
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/users/65424416&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Blast from the Past

New research by scientists at Vanderbilt University adds to our understanding of the legacy of our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23459 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Neanderthal-Image-247x300.jpg" alt="Neanderthal Image" width="247" height="300" />
<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6274/737.full">The study</a> looked specifically at health conditions, finding associations between Neanderthal DNA and conditions related to immune response, blood clotting, and depression by using electronic health records from more than 50,000 individuals.
When humans migrated out of Africa they intermixed with Neanderthals perhaps 60,000 years ago, and so all non-Africans carry some remnant of Neanderthal DNA. Scientists believe that by mixing with Neanderthals, who lived and thrived in Europe and Asia for 100,000 years, modern humans got an evolutionary advantage as they migrated into those new environments.
<a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297%2815%2900486-3">A paper</a> published earlier this year suggests that intermixing with Neanderthals conferred an advantageous immune response for populations that ultimately settled in Europe. Another study two years ago looked at how intermixing with another ancient human cousin, the Denisovan, may have conferred an evolutionary advantage for Tibetans to cope with high altitude through a variant in the EPAS1 gene that helps to prevent blood thickening.
But some of those same traits inherited from Neanderthals – and presumably other ancient human cousins – that tens of thousands of years ago may have been advantageous, may not be beneficial in modern times when diet and lifestyle are so different.
“These variants sometimes protect against a disease,” said Svante Paabo the<a href="http://www.mpg.de/9819763/neanderthal-genes-immune-system"> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</a>.
Interviewed for a story in Science Magazine about the findings Paabo added that some of the variants may “sometimes make people more susceptible to disease.”
Although the Vanderbilt study focuses just on health related traits, it illustrates the potential of looking at a broad grouping of phenotypes like those in the electronic medical records, with known Neanderthal variants. (23andMe <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/new-neanderthal-report">reports</a> to customers the number of Neanderthal variants they carry, how that compares with other customers, and traits those variants are associated with such as back hair and height.)
In an article in the<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/neanderthal-dna-affects-depression-risk-today/462345/"> Atlantic</a>, Ed Yong points this out and notes that, instead of focusing on the associations with disease, attention around this study might be better focused on what those associations can tell us about the biology of certain conditions. For instance, the researchers found that Neanderthal DNA is associated with depression and certain mood disorders. Specifically, researchers speculate variants that helped Neanderthals adapt to lower sunlight exposure in northern latitudes, could have carried a higher risk for depression, which is influenced by sunlight exposure.

The Lasting Legacy of Neanderthals

We might not give Neanderthals much respect, but modern humans probably owe our <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23459" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Neanderthal-Image-247x300.jpg" alt="Neanderthal Image" width="247" height="300" />survival, at least in part, to our now-extinct short and burly ancient cousins.
A<a href="http://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297%2815%2900486-3"> new study</a> by scientists at the<a href="http://www.mpg.de/9819763/neanderthal-genes-immune-system"> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</a> – the same team that just a few years ago<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12886.html"> first sequenced a Neanderthal genome</a> – found that when modern humans emerged out of Africa and intermixed with Neanderthals perhaps 60,000 years ago, it gave us an evolutionary advantage to survive and thrive.
After all, Neanderthals had 200,000 years to adapt and flourish outside of Africa before modern humans met up with them, so intermixing may have given a genetic leg up to modern humans adapting to the new environment they encountered in their migrations.
This is not the first time that scientists have discussed the evolutionary advantage  – termed<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110809/full/476136a.html"> “hybrid vigor”</a> – imparted by Neanderthals to modern humans. But it is the first time specific genetic contributions from Neanderthals have been found and tied directly to an evolutionary advantage. Two years ago researchers at University of California Berkeley showed that another archaic human cousin, the Denisovan, may have given Tibetans a<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7513/full/nature13408.html"> genetic adaptation</a> for living at high altitudes.


In this new paper on Neanderthal,   researchers found that changes in the Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes – genes involved in how we respond to to such things as bacteria, fungi and parasites – may have given modern humans the ability to withstand some of the exposures they would have encountered in their new environments.


&#8220;What has emerged from our study as well as from other work on introgression is that interbreeding with archaic humans does indeed have functional implications for modern humans,” Kelso said. “And that the most obvious consequences have been in shaping our adaptation to our environment &#8211; improving how we resist pathogens and metabolize novel foods.&#8221;


But there was a cost to this advantage. While these genetic variants may have helped boost humans ability to withstand certain pathogens and bacteria, they may have also left modern humans with an overactive immune system making them more susceptible to asthma and allergies.


In a study done by<a href="https://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v45/n8/full/ng.2686.html"> researchers here at 23andMe</a>, variants in the same three genes identified in these two studies – TLR1, TLR6, and TLR10– are also associated with asthma, hay fever and other allergies. Researchers here at 23andMe have also looked at how Neanderthal variants influence certain common traits like hair curl, back hair and height. (23andMe offers customers a Neanderthal report, showing them what variants are of Neanderthal origin, what traits they may influence, and how they compare to others.)

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 250px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
More on Neanderthals
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/meeting-at-the-crossroads/">Meeting at the Crossroads</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/dem-bones/">Dem Bones</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/news/neanderthal-fade-away/">Neanderthal Fade Away</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

23andMe population geneticist Ivan Juric, who previously worked at Graham Coop’s lab at the University of California, Davis, said <a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/21/030148">  his research there</a> suggests that on average, selection was working against Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans.
His yet-to-be published research and the work of <a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/31/030387">Kelly Harris and Rasmus Nielsen</a>, also in pre-publication review, suggest that early human-Neanderthal hybrids might have been strongly selected against. This doesn’t mean that all the Neanderthal variants in humans are deleterious, as shown in the new research regarding the TLR genes.


This all adds to our understanding of human history and evolution, about why modern humans survived and Neanderthals and Denisovans didn’t, and it may give us insight into certain conditions and traits we still carry today.

The Neanderthal Advantage

Fast and sure on the ice, Olympic gold medalist <a href="http://apoloantonohno.com/">Apolo Anton Ohno</a> was less sure about his ancestral background.
<div id="attachment_23315" style="width: 295px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23315" class="size-medium wp-image-23315" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Apolo-Ono-C-fixed-B-285x300-285x300.jpg" alt="Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno and Extreme Genes radio host Scott Fischer." width="285" height="300" />Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno and Extreme Genes radio host Scott Fischer.</div>
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 radio show <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-115-olympic-gold-medalist-apolo-anton-ohno-dr-robin-smith-on-dna-week/">Extreme Genes</a>, Apolo said he turned to 23andMe to find out more about his ancestry. Along with the eight time Olympic medalist, the show featured 23andMe product scientist Robin Smith, PhD, who highlighted some of the company’s ancestry features and tools.
During his segment, Apolo explained that growing up outside of Seattle, he was sometimes asked about his nationality. “What are you?” is how the question was often asked.
“I’m half Japanese, but they’d ask what’s the other half,” Apolo told the show host Scott Fischer.
He didn’t know much about the other half of his ancestry.
His mother and father had divorced when he was very young and he stayed with his dad. He didn’t have much contact with his mother and because she’d been adopted she really didn’t know much about her family history.
But he was always curious about his ancestors, he said during the show.
On his Japanese side, he had a rich source of family lore not just from his grandmother, but because it is custom to carefully catalog the family going back generations. There are extensive household registries called koseki, as well as death records and records compiled by families themselves that helped Apolo trace back his Japanese family history. 
On his mother’s side, he had very little to go on. That’s why he turned to 23andMe. He learned the other half of his ancestry was rooted in England and Ireland, which might explain that even though his hair is black, his sideburns and goatee are red. He also learned that he has a little North African ancestry.
Apolo said his curiosity wasn’t just about learning about himself, but learning more generally about the human story. He mentioned reading about the discovery of 120,000 year old bones in China that change our understanding about the timing of human migration.
“It’s awesome,” he said of the science.
Before Apolo’s segment on the show, 23andMe scientist Robin Smith discussed some of 23andMe’s tools customers can use to explore not just their ancestry, but also their own connection to the human story.
Robin, who started his career as a geneticist focused on spinal cord regeneration, works on writing health and trait reports for 23andMe along with helping the company’s ancestry team develop features. One of the projects Robin worked on is 23andMe’s new Neanderthal report.
All humans outside of Africa carry DNA signatures of Neanderthals, a sister species to modern humans that went extinct about 35,000 years ago. Using new sequencing data, 23andMe can pinpoint where those Neanderthal variants show up in your genome, Robin said.
The report also looks at the different traits some of those variants are associated with – back hair and height, for instance.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-23316" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Neanderthal-Report-640x397.jpg" alt="Neanderthal Report" width="640" height="397" />

Olympic Search

Seth McFarlane brought the humor, Pharrell Williams the glam, and this year’s winners of the<a href="https://breakthroughprize.org/"> Breakthrough Prize</a> brought the wonder of science.
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<div id="attachment_23180" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23180" class="wp-image-23180 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners-300x200.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of the Breakthrough Prize. Credit: GettyImages" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Breakthrough-Winners.jpg 574w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Breakthrough Prize winners at the ceremony. Image courtesy of the Breakthrough Prize. Credit: GettyImages</div>
At a glitzy awards ceremony broadcast live from Silicon Valley Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel, the winners were singled out for their achievements in fields ranging from mathematics, to fundamental physics and life sciences.
“By challenging conventional thinking and expanding knowledge over the long term, scientists can solve the biggest problems of our time,” said Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who with his wife Priscilla Chan helped establish the prize along with Google’s Sergey Brin, Jack Ma, of Alibaba, Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner, and 23andMe’s very own Anne Wojcicki.


“The Breakthrough Prize honors achievements in science and math so we can encourage more pioneering research and celebrate scientists as the heroes they truly are,” Zuckerberg said.


Now in its third year, the prize turns the table on celebrity culture by having stars hand out awards to the luminaries who have made outstanding contributions to math and science. This year’s awards were no different with Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Hillary Swank, as well as pop singer Christina Aguilera, among those handing out the trophies.


“Tonight we put the spotlight where it belongs,” said Aguilera.
<div id="attachment_23181" style="width: 244px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23181" class="wp-image-23181 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne-234x300.jpg" alt="Anne" width="234" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne-234x300.jpg 234w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Anne.jpg 447w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px" />23andMe&#8217;s CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki. Photo courtesy of The Breakthrough Prize. Photo credit: Getty Images.</div>
This year’s prizes included awards to the five teams of more than one thousand scientists from around the world that have made new discoveries around the oscillation of neutrinos, one of the fundamental particles of the universe; as well as an award to mathematicians who’ve solved the long standing problems of symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry and differential geometry.


But for us here at 23andMe, we were particularly interested in the awards handed out for work in the life sciences.
“This year’s laureates have all opened up ways of understanding ourselves,” said Anne, 23andMe CEO and co-founder. “In the life sciences, they have pushed forward new ideas about Alzheimer’s, cholesterol, neurological imaging and the origins of our species. And for that we celebrate them.”


Among the winners were Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who pioneered the sequencing of ancient DNA. His work sequencing the Neanderthal DNA has helped change our fundamental understanding of human evolution.
Also recognized for his achievement was <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/rlweston-inst/people/john">John Hardy</a>, of University College London, for discovering the variants in the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) gene that causes early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The discovery has helped give us greater insight into how the accumulation of APP-derived beta-amyloid peptide leads to Alzheimer’s and will help map out ways to better treat the disease.


And finally, also particularly inspiring for the researchers at 23andMe is the work of awardee <a href="http://profiles.utsouthwestern.edu/profile/13232/helen-hobbs.html">Helen Hobbs</a>, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Hobbs was singled out for her discovery of human genetic variants in the gene PCSK9 that trigger the clearance of cholesterol and other lipids and protect against heart disease. The discovery of this protective variant has led to the development of two new drugs that are saving people’s lives.
In all a combined $21.9 million was awarded to the winners.
To find out more or to see the full list of winners <a href="https://breakthroughprize.org/News/29">go here</a>.

Science’s Rock Stars

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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Good Mythical Morning”</a> the two looked at their 23andMe results and then compared traits like earwax, Neanderthal percentages and whether they got a taste of soap when they grazed on <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/cilantro-love-hate-genetic-trait" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cilantro</a>.
With the kind of friendly and funny back-and-forth banter that has made many of their videos go viral, the two used their results as a way to illustrate a recent scientific finding showing that friends tend to be more alike genetically than strangers. The study by researchers at Yale and UC San Diego was published last year in the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/10/1400825111" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, and looked at 2,000 individuals. The scientists found that friends shared about 1 percent of their DNA – equivalent to what fourth cousins would share – versus strangers who shared very little.
The study is one of several now that have looked at how shared genetics may help people bond.
23andMe researchers also looked at this phenomenon but focused specifically on <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andme-couples-correlated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">couples</a> with children. Our researchers found that, contrary to what some believe, opposites don’t in fact attract. The work just added to several studies done over the years showing that people tended to bond with those with whom they are more alike than those with whom they are more different.
Whether you are into the science or not, you should check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2/featured" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rhett &amp; Link&#8217;s show</a>. It&#8217;s a lot of fun.
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Neanderthal — Page 2