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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/30/scientists-genetic-makeup-denisovan-girl

Scientists reconstruct genetic makeup of 50,000-year-old girl

Researchers built up portrait from finger-bone fragment of Denisovan who lived and died in a Siberian cave

Scientists sequenced single strands of DNA found at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008. Photograph: Johannes Krause/AP

Scientists have reconstructed the entire genetic makeup of a girl who lived and died in a Siberian cave more than 50,000 years ago. The young woman belonged to an ancient and long extinct group of humans called Denisovans, their existence known only from meagre fossil remains uncovered at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008. These ancient relatives are thought to have occupied much of Asia tens of thousands of years ago. Previous tests on the remains found they were more closely related to Neanderthals than modern humans.

Writing in the journal Science, researchers in the US and Germany describe how they sequenced the girl's genome with an accuracy that was once considered impossible with such ancient specimens. The final sequence matched the quality of modern genetic tests on living people.

They achieved the feat through a procedure that sequenced single strands of DNA taken from a little finger bone found at the scene. The bone fragment, and two fossilised teeth, are the only remains of the Denisovans.

Studies on the girl's genes suggest she had dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes, but other genetic factors help shed light on the Denisovans more broadly. Comparison of genetic material inherited separately from the girl's mother and father points to a population with very low genetic diversity, probably a consequence of the Denisovans starting off as a small group of pioneers and expanding rapidly, with little time for genetic diversity to arise.

Svante Pääbo, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, said there was now "no difference in what we can learn genetically about a person that lived 50,000 years ago and from a person today, provided that we have well-enough preserved bones".

The team from Leipzig and Harvard Medical School in Boston compared the Denisovan genome with similar sequences from Neanderthals and 11 modern humans from around the world. This revealed evidence for inbreeding, with Denisovan DNA living on in some populations alive today.

"It's clear that Denisovan material has contributed 3-5% of the genomes of people in Australia and New Guinea and aboriginal people from the Philippines, and some of the islands nearby," said David Reich, a Harvard geneticist who worked on the study. The research highlighted scores of intriguing gene variants that are found in modern humans but not in Denisovans. Eight mutations that have arisen since our ancestors split from Denisovans are involved in brain function and nerve connectivity, for example.

"I think that this is perhaps, in the long term for me, the most fascinating thing about this: what it will tell us in the future about what makes us special in the world, relative to the Denisovans and Neanderthals," said Pääbo.

Another 34 mutations found only in modern humans are associated with diseases, including four that affect the skin and eyes.

Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said further genetic studies might shed light on the biological differences betweenHomo sapiens and the Neanderthal and Denisovan populations they replaced after they left Africa around 60,000 years ago. "Perhaps some of the skin and eye-related ones reflect resistance to diseases in the African homeland of modern humans, but the brain-related ones hint at possible enhancements in brain structure and function in our species," he said.

He said the low genetic diversity of the Denisovans may indicate that they only expanded into regions like the Altai mountains in southern Siberia in small numbers and during warm spells.

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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its
full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not
mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL"
means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to
know about what people think or do, even when what they think or do is
completely stupid and against our philosophy. When I selected articles
in the past about stupid Christian fundamentalists in America praying
for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader was stupid enough to believe
that I was supporting praying to change the weather. So, when I select
articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, racist,
revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any
other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It just
means that it is important for all human beings to know about them.
Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good
enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug
decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment,
which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs,
as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and
sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal
record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which
says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes.
The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute.
That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
anti-Semites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your
enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight
them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence
of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
 
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history, 
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
 
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
 
Rael
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