Blimey, the world of evolutionary biology gets more interesting by the day.

[lil_shepherd]

First of all we learn that Homo sapiens seems to have a very small percentage of Neandertal genes, meaning the two species - or sub-species mated and produced viable offspring.

Now we learn that there may have been yet another species of Homo that migrated out of Africa before either the Neandertals or ourselves.

And the strange fossils of the

Comments

[melodyclark]

Some of the right-wing media is still stuck in the Middle Paleolithic. Then again, even homo sapiens neanderthalensis cared for their sick and aging. Perhaps the "third wave" is the RW strain. lol

[philmophlegm]

"First of all we learn that Homo sapiens seems to have a very small percentage of Neandertal genes..."

...which just goes to back up what I've been saying about Matt Smith's eyebrows...

[steamshovelmama]

I think it all goes to illustrate how very little we actually know about such an interesting period of our history. I've long been impatient with the dogmatic pronouncements of some of the palaeontologists about what we know when a lot of it is extrapolated from half a brain pan and two thirds of a femur... (I've always wondered whether half an Australian aboriginal brain pan and two thirds of a Japanese femur would be classified as the same species by some of the guys involved

[lil_shepherd]

The really astonishing thing is ability to gene-sequence such ancient and degraded DNA. That is awesome.

[melodyclark]

Wait till you see what they have down the road.

They're now talking about "inferential DNA".