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San Francisco, 2:19 AM
Sun Nov 29
10 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/16/09
07/16/09
Fanfiction ALWAYS has the answers for the worst questions.
07/17/09
07/16/09
Much has changed in the last decade with our ability to sequence small amounts of DNA and has really altered our understanding of Neanderthal quite a bit.
Now Homo floresiensis... that's a real humdinger of a mystery. And because of the climate where we found them, it's very unlikely any viable DNA will be available - at least with current technology.
07/16/09
They may indeed have produced some offspring - there is at least one fossil suggesting this - but they just couldn't produce fertile offspring, much like a donkey and a horse produce a mule.
And of course, don't forget that if you can stick your bits in something, someone will probably try. They did look very similar to us and I'm sure some humans and neanderthals got it on plenty of times. It's just that kind of thing doesn't leave much evidence in this case.
07/16/09
In all seriousness, this is really cool.
The lack of genetic variation would have made it pretty tricky to adapt to the changing environment.
I’ve always felt a kind of speciest pride in the fact that H. sapiens beat the evolutionary pants off Neanderthals (I never went in for the interbreeding/subspecies theories).
That may not say much about me as a person.
07/16/09
it's an interesting study though. It's always good to have genetics backing stuff up. I'd be a heck of a lot happier if they had a larger sample size than 5 though... even if the samples were from different locations in Europe.
07/16/09
07/16/09
Plus we'd figure out how to eat anything (and still do), make better tools to get food with, and did better in warm weather.
07/16/09