Is prominent synthetic biologist George Church in search of a human surrogate for a Neanderthal baby?

German magazine Der Spiegel has just published an interview with geneticist George Church in which he talks about his work as a biologist and his idea of making humans resistant to all viruses. But he also addresses a topic we've discussed before: The idea of cloning a Neandertal.

Anthropologists are pretty sure that Neandertals and humans interbred — and DNA analysis backs up this idea. But we don't know the date ranges involved — including when the two groups stopped hooking up.

Were Europe's first artists Neandertals? An international team of archaeologists says it's a strong possibility. Improved dating techniques have revealed that the practice of cave painting began at least 40,800 years ago, around the same time that modern humans arrived in Europe.

Early humans mated with Neandertals, and modern human DNA was changed forever by it. New genetic evidence, announced today, proves that most humans share 1-4% of their DNA with Neandertals. Unless you're from Africa, in which case you're Neandertal-free.

Scientists have long debated whether Neandertals were as sophisticated as the early homo sapiens who lived alongside them. New evidence from a 50-thousand-year-old Neandertal campsite suggests they were our ancestors' mental equals, wearing jewelry and painting with homebrew pigments.