Neanderthal Ancestors May Be To Blame For Why You Can't Get a Tan (telegraph.co.uk) 118
turkeydance shares a report from The Telegraph: If you struggle to get a tan, consider yourself a night owl or are plagued with arthritis, then your Neanderthal ancestors could be to blame, a new genetic study has shown. Although Neanderthals are often portrayed in drawings as swarthy, in fact they arrived in Northern Europe thousands of years before modern humans, giving time for their skin to become paler as their bodies struggled to soak up enough sun. When they interbred with modern humans those pale genes were passed on. Likewise, genetic mutations which predispose people to arthritis also came from our Neanderthal ancestors, as did the propensity to be a night owl rather than a lark, as northern latitudes altered their body clocks. A raft of new papers published in the journals Science and the American Journal of Human Genetics has shed light on just how many traits we owe to our Neanderthal ancestors.
Scientists also now think that differences in hair color, mood and whether someone will smoke or have an eating disorder could all be related to inter-breeding, after comparing ancient DNA to 112,000 British people who took part in the UK Biobank study. The Biobank includes genetic data along with information on many traits related to physical appearance, diet, sun exposure, behavior, and disease and helps scientists pick apart which traits came from Neanderthals. Dr Janet Kelso, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, said: "We can now show that it is skin tone, and the ease with which one tans, as well as hair color that are affected."
Scientists also now think that differences in hair color, mood and whether someone will smoke or have an eating disorder could all be related to inter-breeding, after comparing ancient DNA to 112,000 British people who took part in the UK Biobank study. The Biobank includes genetic data along with information on many traits related to physical appearance, diet, sun exposure, behavior, and disease and helps scientists pick apart which traits came from Neanderthals. Dr Janet Kelso, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, said: "We can now show that it is skin tone, and the ease with which one tans, as well as hair color that are affected."
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They ask you to sign up for a free account for full text, so you have to jump through one small hoop, but to describe it as "paywalled" and "not for the public" is simply false.
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If you struggle to get a tan, consider yourself.. (Score:3)
If you struggle to get a tan, consider yourself a night owl or are plagued with arthritis
Stop spying on me, NSA!
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Bioinformatics and genetic data mining is absolutely at the forefront of computer science research today. Nothing is more appropriate as "geek news".
Re:Oh, for crying out loud. (Score:5, Insightful)
jcr snorted:
This is nothing even close to /. material.
Oh really?
a. /. supposedly is "News for nerds."
b. I'm an unashamed nerd. I'm also a night owl, I burn, rather than tan, and I suffer from "moderate" osteoarthritis. And I'm of northern European extraction (Irish, Welsh, and Prussian to be precise). For all those reasons, this interests me.
I'll bet you a shiny, new quarter I'm not alone, either ...
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Though come to think of it, I'm not seeing any Neanderthal men either, so it must be a full blown racial issue!
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Genetics isn't a nerdy science topic? The fuck are you smoking today and may I have some?
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Do you want to have a fuck with "jcr", or you want to smoke the come after the fuck? Won't it make your papers wet and sticky and hard to light?
Racism (Score:2, Interesting)
The article indicates that early humans developed strategies to avoid interbreeding, recognizing that there were dangers associated with doing so. Although many people consider religion ridiculous now, it may have provided a survival advantage at one time, promoting an orderly society. It seems like the attempts to avoid interbreeding may have also conferred a survival advantage, and that trait may persist to this day as racism and avoiding diversity. It makes me wonder if racism, awful as it is, may have o
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Mixed-race relationships are making us taller and smarter: Children born to genetically diverse parents are more intelligent than their ancestors
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First, interbreeding would be between humans and animals
Crap. Interbreeding is just breeding between things that you've sorted into different categories. Referring to sexual activity between neanderthals and homo sapiens as interbreeding is fine.
Re: Racism (Score:3, Interesting)
You're an asshole for labeling me a troll. I'm asking a serious question of whether racism is the evolutionary remnant of something that once conferred a survival advantage. I'm suggesting that humans evolved to avoid mingling and mating with those who looked and acted differently as a mechanism to prevent interspecies mating. What once might have provided an advantage to early humans is now probably harmful, but our genes haven't caught up to that reality.
Early humans didn't understand genetics and the act
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"I'm suggesting that racism might be an evolutionary trait"
Probably no need to resort to racism as evolutionary advantage as it looks to me to be too "refined". Ours is a social species, and social cohesiveness provides an obvious survival advantage to the individual. It's also that our intelligence is developed around prejudicing categorization (simplifying a lot: this movement on that bush is a lion that will eat me or is a gazelle I can eat? No, sorry, no time to gather further evidences -and if you fai
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"if there are an "us" and a "them", one of those two sets *must* be better than the other -and it won't be "us", so it must be "them""
Obviously I meant the other way around.
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One theory gaining ground in anthropology: Neanderthals lost out to Homo erectus peoples, despite their larger brains and greater physical strength, precisely because of the innate, savage tendency of Homo erectus to kill those who were different.
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No, it would be nlggers. Some of those nlggers interbred with Neanderthals, and the result evolved into modern humans. So humans evolved partly out of nlggers.
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You might have a point. Science has always had difficulty understanding how intelligence is inherited. Maybe they've been looking at it upside down, and it's actually stupidity that's inherited!
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The problem with these evolutionary behavior argument is that it's so easy to gin up a scenario to support whatever preconception you have.
Now let's take the notion that we evolved to have preference for mates that look like us. In fact social psychologists have long shown that people are more attracted to others who resemble them. But there's a big difference between selecting a mate, and who you mate with. When you actually look at peoples' genes, it's clear people aren't nearly so picky about outbree
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One other thing I didn't catch when I just replied to your post. Mating between blacks and whites isn't interspecies mating. We're all the same species. Now take your racism and bigotry and GTFO.
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The one obvious downside of an interracial breeding is the inherent difficulty for the offspring, who, almost without exception, has a more difficult upbringing than a child bearing the physical traits in vogue at the time of the child's birth.
Disadvantage is a double-edged sword; though it may cull out the weaker offspring and their chances of passing on their genetic line, the harsher conditions are also quite likely to temper the stronger crossbreeds who survive, giving them a breeding
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Yeah, sure. Neanderthals were also the same species according to your definition.
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The article indicates that early humans developed strategies to avoid interbreeding, recognizing that there were dangers associated with doing so.
They didn't recognize anything. It's more dangerous not to interbreed. Inbreeding reinforces recessives.
Although many people consider religion ridiculous now, it may have provided a survival advantage at one time, promoting an orderly society.
Religion often still offers an advantage for the members, or a subgroup of the members. It just tends to shit on everyone else.
It seems like the attempts to avoid interbreeding may have also conferred a survival advantage, and that trait may persist to this day as racism and avoiding diversity.
No, those attempts to avoid interbreeding actually harmed viability. You want a broader gene pool to work with.
It makes me wonder if racism, awful as it is, may have once provided a very real survival advantage to early humans.
Nope, it's a bug. The tendency to avoid things that don't look like you is a defense strategy, but if you take it too far then you will miss out on needed genetics.
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what's your Darwinian objection to Muslims killing every last one of you as an opposing subculture
Darwin is not God. I don't oppose cannibalism on moral grounds either, I oppose it on the grounds that I am very well-marbled.
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it may have provided a survival advantage at one time, promoting an orderly society
Possibly. But that 'one time' predates modern societies and writing. People can't keep track of more than 100 to 200 personal relationships. And back in the days of tribes in the jungle or clans in the Neander valley, that sort of familiarity was necessary to maintain a cohesive social unit. You have trouble with a neighbor? You call for a village meeting, where the elders know everyone, who's honest, who's a fuck-up, etc. And action is taken. But this isn't practical for modern society, where any sort of p
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So, for thousands of years humans were predominantly segregated and evolving in tight groups, and now suddenly that is somehow bad for them?
For thousands of years humans were fucking their children and dying of trivial diseases. Appeal to tradition: denied.
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Regardless, there is no established conclusion that mating withing a closed circle is somehow bad.
Ashkenazi Jews. British royalty. Hillbillies. Isolated animal populations. Lots of other counter examples.
Study (Score:2)
Re:Study (Score:5, Insightful)
One study is not science. One study is just one study, even if it's scientific. Science is a process. New scientific "discoveries" are often "bullshit". Once the science has been around for a while, and been reviewed, then it becomes relevant. Consequently we waste time discussing a lot of science-related bullshit here on Slashdot.
That doesn't invalidate science, but it does suggest that people who see one study and say "see!?" are idiots.
Re: Study (Score:1)
So... (Score:1)
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Black people are purebred and white people are impure? What does this mean for those in favor of racial cleansing?
Denial
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No-tan-at-all
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but the world is African. You seem to be ashamed of your African roots.
Neanderthals won their Darwin award already, and never did form complex civilization. Join them if you wish.,
Travel much? There is no corner of the planet without advanced civilization. Nor is there any culture entirely lacking merit. You might enjoy investigating this truth. I surely have.
It should be noted that the bloodiest wars in history have happened in "places with Neanderthal DNA". There is no r
Tan? (Score:2)
that's Sin/Cos isn't it ?
I didn't know neanderthals had worked out trigonometry
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My ancestry includes (Score:2)
Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
Just do it like the Neanderthal-in-Chief and use Tan-in-Bottle.
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That's an insult to Neanderthals
Re: But I can get a tan... (Score:1)
Do you know any red heads?
Some of them do not tan; they just burn.
Its always my ancestors fault (Score:1)
I got bad hair from my mom. I stink cuz of my grandpa. I have bunions cuz of my great-grandmothers mail man. I highly doubt anyhow that its only because of neaderthal's as almost any creature that can live a long time gets ware and tear.. as in arthritis.
-Arzaboa
--
"Respect your Elders!" -- Grandpa.
That's very primitive thinking... (Score:1)
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You have to be African for that.
White people are a100% human. Black people are a 100% human as are all other groups of people. All people should be treated fairly and be given a chance to develop their talents. It is morally wrong to deny any person a decent life or a chance for a decent life because of notions of racial classifications. In same way it is wrong to deny either sex an equal chance. Even more importantly it is stupid.
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Not just KKK members. Antifa, democrats, etc. Anyone on the left. Any of the fascists. That was the whole joke in Charlottesville. We had the KKK and Antifa - both leftists, both democrats and they were fighting each other. Both are racists and they were complaining about old racists. For those of us on the right we're like - yea? Can't we just sit back and watch you bigots kill each other?
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makes as much sense as the hackers-on-meth doing abortion clinics i mean do you think baby-hitler would
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It doesn't matter what color a person's skin is, "rich privilege" wins out. People who end up with money love to pretend that it's natural for them to have it.
Who the hell is that? Everyone I know that is rich knows it's not natural. They won the lottery of life. If they have kids it can all be gone in less than a year. Even if it's hundreds of millions. It's also very hard to keep it. Everyone wants to part you from your money.
Just as the poor are poor for a reason. There will always be poor. They can't handle money. If you work with them, that becomes clear fast. So stealing it from the rich doesn't help.