Our Inner Neandertal

Four percent of the people that live in Africa have DNA that comes from Neandertals. This is a result of interbreeding between Neanderatls and early modern humans. Scientist discovered this by looking at a Neandertal genome, which shows 60 percent of the entire genome. They used DNA that came from three Neandertal bones that are over 38,00 years old. They saw that twelve genome regions where non-Africans shows variants that were not seen in Africans and therefor came from Neandertals. Neandertals lived in Eurasia, not in Africa. They found that 10/12 variants in non-Africans came from Neanderatls. They saw that the Neandertal sequence was equally close to people from France, Papua NEw guinea and China. Scientist explain this by implying that their might have been interbreeding in the Middle East. They discovered that many people, besides Africans have some Neandertal inheritance.

Was the article you selected an example of discovery science or hypothesis based science? Explain
This article is a hypothesis based science because scientist noticed patterns in genomes and then created a hypothesis that they then researched.

What importance does the research or findings have for humans?
This research is important evidence for multi regional evolution. This helps to indicate which parts of the modern genome separates humans from all other living creatures. This may have helped modern humans adapt. These regions helped in the study of cognitive development, sperm movement, and the physiology of the skin.
They still want to understand how these small changes to the modern human sequence impact the functioning of the genome regions.

Bibliography:
Wong, Kate. Scientific America. July 2010. Aritcle Name: Our inner neandertal.