Thursday, February 12, 2009

Neandertal Genome

The rough draft of the Neandertal genome has been released.
...the team has decoded 3.7 billion bases of Neandertal DNA from a bone of a female Neandertal fossil discovered in Vindija cave in Croatia. That DNA represents about 63 percent of the total Neandertal genome.
So, what have they found so far?
Analysis of the genome reveals that humans and Neandertals share genetic roots stretching back at least 830,000 years. Neandertals, the species Homo neandertalensis, were humans’ closest relatives, appearing about 300,000 years ago and living in Europe and parts of Asia until going extinct about 30,000 years ago.
That's just a glimpse. The article is a good read, go check it out.

4 comments:

Edward said...

Hi Thomas. I'm building a sceince blog network and would like to talk to you about hosting your blog. Drop me a line if it looks like something you'd be interested in.

Best,
Edward

Tom said...

Thanks for the invite. I'll mull it over.

Edward said...

k.

Edward said...

Hi Thomas:

Things are progressing. See here.