Good article on the evolution of humans

Lucy, the mother of us all.

I just read a great article in the New York Times. It's an interview with Chris Stringer, a British paleoanthropologist, and it touches on so many interesting topics. It's about where humans came from, why we have 2.5% Neanderthal DNA, and whether we're still evolving. Good stuff. Here's a short excerpt about the pre-humans in Africa who were our forebears. He's discussing the situation just before homo sapiens appeared:

Populations in different areas would have flourished briefly, developed new ideas, and then maybe those populations could have died out, even — but not before exchanging genes, tools and behavioral strategies. This kept happening until we get to within the last 100,000 years, and then finally we start to see the modern pattern behaviorally and physically coalescing from these different regions to become what we call modern humans by about 60,000 years ago.

Apparently, we are the result of a mix of many pre-human populations. We're mutts.

Aside: The fact that humans have only been around for 60,000 years is shocking. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old. Earth is about 4.7 billion years old. And we've been here for, uh, about five minutes and have nearly managed to kill the entire planet in that short time. Makes you think (and shudder).

Go read the article. You'll be glad you did. Knowledge is good.

Neanderthals interbred with modern humans

A few years back, science consistently reported that modern humans never interbred with Neanderthals. I found that news depressing so I was very happy to read a story this morning confirming that non-Africans show evidence of interbreeding with Neanderthals. There is clear evidence of this in our X chromosomes.

It seems this extinct species did not die out completely (i.e., uselessly). They remain a part of us today. I wonder what contributions they made to our genome. Perhaps they passed on attributes that helped us to survive to the present day. I'd like to think so.

If only they were still alive. It would be insanely interesting to learn how we differ from them, not only physically but in terms of mental abilities. We'll never have that opportunity, alas. But they live on in us, and we will take them with us far into the future (if we don't go extinct). Very cool.

And let's not fail to notice a delightful fact that arises unbidden from this bit of scientific news -- only Africans are "pure" homo sapiens. The rest of us are interspecies mongrels. Take that, Fox viewers!