denisovan

An encounter with a mysterious and extinct human relative – the Denisovans – has left a mark on the immune traits of modern Papuans, in particular those living on New Guinea Island.This is a new discovery we describe in a study published in PLOS Genetics today. It further suggests that our modern human diversity didn't just evolve – some parts of it we got from other, extinct human groups.DNA from our evolutionary cousinsHumans are the only living species of the Homo genus. But until 50,000 years ago, our ancestors…

The Alcobaça site in Brazil, where skeletal remains were discovered.Photo: Henry Lavalle, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and Ana Nascimento, Universidade Federal Rural de PernambucoScientists investigating the genomes of ancient South Americans have made a surprising discovery: the presence of DNA from Neanderthals and Denisovans, two species of humans that are now extinct. The findings complicate our understanding of ancient South Americans and their ancestries.01:25Randall Park's Favorite SuperheroesMonday…

Researchers looked at DNA extracted from the remains of 13 Neanderthals that lived in Asia about 54,000 years ago and found some surprising relationships among them.Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were a group of hominins that lived alongside and interbred with anatomically modern humans until their disappearance around 40,000 years ago. Recognizable for their barrel chests, stocky builds, and pronounced brows, Neanderthals are thought to have been bred out of existence; most everyone walking around today has…

Nobel Laureate Svante Pääbo was thrown into a pool of water today for his accomplishment.Photo: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images (Getty Images)The Nobel Assembly today awarded Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research into human origins.Pääbo has been studying ancient DNA since graduate school, when he managed to isolate DNA samples from Egyptian mummies in a German museum. Since then, Pääbo has made his name researching the genetic origins and differentiation of hominin…

Deep in the forests of Laos, in a cave in the Annamite Mountains, lay a single child's tooth. That tooth – an unassuming molar - could be from a mysterious species of human we know little about, and of which few remains are known to exist.  "Analyses of the internal structure of the molar in tandem with palaeoproteomic analyses of the enamel indicate that the tooth derives from a young, likely female, Homo individual," researchers write in a new study. The tooth, from the Tam Ngu Hao 2 cave, "most likely represents a…