Archaic Genomics - Svante Pääbo

[tinytinky]

Svante Pääbo: Very smart with a sort of bone dry humor.... and allways a modest guy, that laughs about himself and others in a comfort way. What a pleasure to listen to him when he talks of his "yeenoms" and discoveries....;)

[nikkid]

I can't help wondering what we will still discover when the thickest and oldest glaciers melt. There must be so much history hidden there

[Highencast]

To the video editor: please don't switch the camera onto the speaker when important information is being presented on the slides. It was infuriating to watch the part at 28:18 without being able to see what he was talking about.

[SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

great lecture...very enlightening.... :)

[thedeadnigerianprincehaunt]

Those knockout mice were great in the maze but, once loose in the lab.... they kept organizing groups to relay the rodent poison in the employee breakroom cupboard into the technician's cereal box on a nightly basis until the lab was out of technicians.

[timhallas]

That's interesting. We add a bit of human genome to mice and they become more cautious. Does that mean that as humans were exposed to more dangers, the genes that evolved in us as a response to fear also contributed to higher communication skills. I'm imagining the creation of a vocalization that means "Run form it, Marty." I am also imagining the psychology of, " I knew we should have stayed in the tree", curiosity killed the cat, and the more you know, the more there is to be afraid of.... Oh, and ignorance is bliss.

[evaguo]

Love Paabo. When will the paper on the Ust-Ishim bone be published? O when o when? 

[TanaiCardona]

It would be so amazing if they can get a Homo erectus genome!

[helenmeyer]

I am shocked at the ignorance and prejudice of a lot of the commentators. Any educated, informed scholar knows that all humans came from Africa--likely the San people were the earliest--and the color of skin is minor and based on geography in relation to the intense sun at the equator. We are fortunate to live in the time where Svante Paabo has done all this outstanding research and made sure we know that there is a single human race. All you racists, wake up!

[heidistandell]

It is difficult to understand how the Neanderthal dna is associated with the Y chromosome if male hybrids tend to be sterile...I keep wondering if the Neanderthal dna from the female X line somehow became expressed in the Y line because of some environmental or developmental factor that caused some portions of the (usually silent) faculative chromatin portion of the heterochromata to become expressed during meiosis, and that such an occurrence may have even allowed some male hybrids to be fertile? Hmmmm, I really am curious about that! In some hybrid species the "glue" of the heterochroma does not allow separation of two X chromosomes so that female embryos are unable to develop (though this of course was discovered in a recent study of insects, it may explain some of the sterility found in higher hybrid animals as well). 

[robertvirnig]

Has anyone studied the genomics of the people known as Homo floresiensis?

[whatopher]

Fertility between species is determined most by chromosomes not mitochondrial DNA base pairs. Also its not guess work; its careful brilliance. Many of these determinations have to do with statistical certainty. Neanderthal DNA exists in humans today. For this to occur without hybridization is statically impossible. Let say a person has 1 percent Neanderthal DNA, then there are approximately 3 million common base pairs. The random chance is 4^3, 000, 000 to 1. That number is so great that it broke my calculator. This is a far oversimplification, but you get the idea.

[mpeqirb]

Once you've seen one Paabo lecture you've already heard all the jokes.

[josephfulginiti]

Are we really a different species from Neanderthal if the hybrid children were not sterile? When other species interbreed (horse/donkeys etc.) their offspring cannot bare young.

[kidchalleen]

Man I respect this man scientifically so much...it's sucks that he's so soft spoken.

[carlandre]

Planet of Ths Mice. Coming go a science lab this summer.

[Mdebacle]

The original document of May 2010 stated that Neanderthal genome was 12.7 percent "ancestral", which calculates to about 2 million bases closer to a chimpanzee.
This recent report states that NM is only "31, 389" single nucleotide changes apart from modern humans.
Does this mean NM genome had human genes paired with "ancestral" genes ?

[eatonr]

Neanderthal, I have not heard anyone suggest a life spent a bit more in trees. Not as a 'monkey' but a person with the ability to do so and does it. Excellent defense from predators, especially at night. Present day bears in Siberia are smart enough to think of it to prevent tigers from eating them. Tiger eats a bear...! Shit! What about a man?


I would like to think that a person and not a Bear came up with the idea. Trees.


Back (or forward) 30, 000 years ago, what was on the ground along with them. You can't imagine! They survived there along with everything. Oh yeah! Food for Thought.

[deckiedeckie]

Allway wanted o hear what this man has to say....he's too far above me....wish he was a bit more down to earth so people like me could understand more...

[stevegovea]

Ever wonder how religion would have explained how man came to be, if Neanderthals never died out?