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Steven Jay Gould says that there is "no way" we'll get
enough
DNA to bring back dinosaurs. But why can't we bring back
neanderthals? There are plenty of remains, some have even
been frozen. I really want to know if they could talk, or
learn
to read. Also I think having a few neanderthals
around would
get people to see just how closely all the people on earth
today are related to each other. It might piss of the
neanderthals though, but that can't be to bad. we already
out
bred them once ... we can do it again.
Of course it might turn out that they are smarter than us,
but
then we'd just use them to build rockets and stuff. Come
on,
it'd be great fun!
clickity-click...
http://www.halfbake..._20back_20barbapapa
[mihali, Jul 19 2001]
The Ugly Little Boy: the Movie!
http://www.d-reamsc.../Movies/uglyboy.htm
With Demi Moore? THE PAIN, THE PAIN! [Uncle Nutsy, Jul 19 2001]
(?) Dinosaur found alive in England
http://www.annwiddecombemp.com/
[Pallex, Jul 19 2001]
(?) One theory on Neanderthal extinction
http://www.uth.tmc....mar_96/neander.html
They were just lazy sods [Guy Fox, Jul 19 2001]
The latest skinny on Neanderthals.
http://news.bbc.co....1468000/1468482.stm
[angel, Jul 19 2001]
Discover article
http://www.discover.../archive/index.html
This is older than I thought, oh how time flies by. [EvoketheTiger, Jul 19 2001]
Neanderthal Surrogates, this link is for you
http://www.foxnews....e-neanderthal-baby/
[theircompetitor, Jan 21 2013]
Scary that this may actually be possible (through DNA resequencing)
http://en.wikipedia...The_Ugly_Little_Boy
[theircompetitor, Jan 21 2013]
In today's news
http://www.rawstory...utm_medium=facebook
[UnaBubba, Jan 21 2013]
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But do we really know enough about prehistoric baking
techniques to confidently say that we out bread them? I
mean, sure, we have pumpernickel, sourdough and banana
bread, but who knows what they may have had? |
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Personally, I'd rather see the woolly mammoth make a comeback. |
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Then we can hunt them into extinction for their tusks and shaggy coats again. |
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har har har a pun. I'd like to see mammoth's too. We can
use elephants as surrogate wombs, and it'd give the
neanderthals something to do. |
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Milford Wolpoff argues that there's no need to 'bring them back' because they never went away. |
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Baked in an old Isaac Asimov story (can't remember which one), where a Neanderthal is cloned from DNA (or something... been a long time since I read the story). He ends up in court standing up for his rights as a human being. It's a sort of well-meaning but rather disingenuous metaphor for the Civil Rights movement. |
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No... don't listen to me. I'm talking bollocks. Listen to sirrobin... |
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The Asimov story might have been Jerry Was a Man by
Heinlein. Also halfbaked in David Zindell's triffic novel
Neverness where a few thousand years before the main
story a group of people wanted to get back to nature and
reengineered themselves some neanderthal genes and set
off into the wilderness. |
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PotatoStew: I'm pretty sure we at least out-cheese them. France alone has more than 365 different types of cheese -- one for every day of the year. In prehistoric times, I don't think they had that many days in a year. |
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More seriously, I thought I'd heard from PBS about efforts that are currently underway to create mammoths using sperm from animals found frozen whole. I don't recall whether the eggs were also from frozen mammoths or elephants, but the idea was that an elephant would carry the fetus. |
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And wouldn't it be interesting if we revived neanderthals and they de-volved into apes? |
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i'd rather see barbapapa. |
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[mihali]: Don't start that again! |
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[PeterSealy]: I'm sure I've even heard one theory that Homo Erectus was not a distinct species. These distinctions might turn out to be as spurious, at the end of the day, as the hoary old dolichocephalic / brachycephalic division. |
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Guy Fox: You're probably thinking of the classic story "The Ugly Little Boy" (Asimov's own third-favorite among his stories), later unnecessarily turned into a novel by Robert Silverberg. A movie version is threatened; see link. |
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Didn't any of you see that "great" pauly shore movie Encino man. I mean come on, that is probably exactly how it would be. |
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Actually, the bus driver in 'Speed' looked remarkably like a Neanderthal, too...big brow ridge and protruding jaw. Can't figure out who he is from IMDB's list, though... |
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Hm... I always thought Sandra Bullock was kind of cute... |
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<pats PotatoStew gently on the head.> There, there...I know you're confused, but Sandra Bullock doesn't look anything like a six foot black gentleman. Trust me on this. |
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There are certainly no neanderthals left.
We killed them all, we are the only species that get rid of another. |
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Awww, that's just not true. Species are out competing
each other all the time. Extinction is a part of history. Of
course we seem to have a knack for getting rid of other
species more quickly and in greater numbers ... but we
aren't the only creatures that do/have done that. |
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The Stewart Island Wren was nudged into extinction by the light-house-keeper's cat. |
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The domestic cat is actually being quite effective in nudging a number of wild animals towards extinction all around the British countryside, I understand.
And re the Cro-Magnon-exterminated-Neanderthal argument - this idea has fallen out of favour amongst archaeologists due to a lack of evidence whereas, to the best of my knowledge, there is some evidence of *peaceful* cohabitation. |
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Baked:
I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread and water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia.
-William Saroyan
Inbreeding has its adherents, as its as close to Neanderthal as I've ever seen. |
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Today as much as i know we have enough knowlegde to say that there has been a war between neanderthals and us. But this war was totally unfair since we were much smarter than they were so you know the result. We first get rid of them in africa, then swept them from the europe , starting from east to west. the age of the oldest remainders from neanderthals grows as we follow this route and the oldest tracks from neanderthals are in spain, in underground tunnels where they were hiding from us. but it didn't last long to find them. |
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there was a complete war with all the meanings. An extinction of species can2t be considered as such unless there is a conscious act of killing. don2t forget that we dind2t have to kill them in order to survive, we were superior to them. |
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[Rod's] (way, way back in the annotations) We already have Neanderthal music, we call it Garage. |
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Referring back to Guy Fox's comments about Asimov's disingenuous metaphor for the Civil Rights movement: Has anyone ever seen Planet of the Apes 4 when the Apes, enslaved by humans in the year 1992, revolt in a plot that has constant references to the American Civil Rights movement? |
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In addition, I did just watch a long documentary on early humans on PBS the other day and the theory they set forth was that Cro-Magnan man was just more successful at survival and drove Neanderthal off to the fringes. However, I remember reading an article in Discover last year that speculated Cro-Magnan/Neanderthal cross breeding. So who knows? |
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The problem is that, in all probability, only certain
bits of Neanderthal DNA have made their way into
the human genome. My reasons for assuming this
are: |
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(a) if interbreeding was rare, then many large
segments of Neanderthal chromosomes will have
been lost by random shuffling amongst the
descendents of the offspring. |
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(b) some Neanderthal genes may have been
disadvantageous, leading to preferential loss of
those genes and (given the large scale on which
chromosomes shuffle), large chunks of
surrounding genome. |
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On the bright side, there probably is enough DNA
out there to reconstruct a Neanderthal genome,
though it would need better resources than we
have at present. And even then you don't have a
real in-the-flesh Neanderthal, just a few Gb of
data. |
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Another good fiction-bake for this one is 'N-Words' by Ted
Kosmatka. Thought-provoking short prose, but it kind of
falls into the metaphor trap. |
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I'm pretty sure my neighbour's son is living proof of
the continued existence of Homo neanderthalensis. |
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I think that 'N-Words' was the story that [Guy Fox] was
thinking of - not "The Ugly Little Boy". What struck me most
from that story was that Kosmatka postulated that
Neanderthals were fair-skinned redheads rather than
swarthy as usually portrayed. His rationale was that they
lived in the northern, low sunlight latitudes 10 times longer
than our current Nordics. |
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I, too, thought that was pretty insightful, but it held no
other surprises for me. It's one of those stories where I got
more out of the little details than out of the central plot.
Of course, I tend to deconstruct stories as I read them, like
literary reverse engineering, and there often comes a point
when I know where the author is going with things and I
become far more interested in how the prose is
constructed than in the story itself. In the case of 'N-
Words', I really appreciated the parent-child emotional
themes more than the obvious social metaphor. |
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I should probably join some kind of literary discussion
forum... |
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[Guy Fox] posted his anno about the half-remembered
probably-Asimov story at least 5 years before 'N-words'
was first published. |
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//[Guy Fox] posted his anno about the half-remembered
probably-Asimov story at least 5 years before 'N-words' was
first published.//. Spooky |
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It may have been the subject of a short story, or
story precis that he [Guy Fox] read. That said, the
HB has long surprised me at how often it is seemingly
the seminal reference for many discoveries and
stories. |
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Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series features exactly this idea - the Neanderthals were cloned under license of the sprawling Goliath Corporation who own the DNA rights (and by extension preside over their ability to procreate) - justifiably the Neanderthal's are suitably non-plussed. |
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All 'bakers should read this series, as, like Ubie says, it could almost be as if great swathes of the alternate reality so depicted are lifted from the HB. (In fact, for some months, I was convinced that Jasper Fforde may already be amongst us) |
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Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" is also very HB-like.
However, it was published in 1992, so pre-dates the
'bakery by 7 years or so. |
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Anyone doubting the continued existance of neanderthals merely
needs to visit the North-north-west wing of Buchanan Towers,
where he keeps the breeding colony of Third-class domestic and
out-of-doors servants; or take a quarter-hour ride onthe light
railway to the far side of the Kitchen Garden, and take a look at
the staff. Remember to keep all doors and windows closed, and
don't make sudden movements. They aren't aggressive, but can
panic if startled. |
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Or you could ask to be introduced to his cousin Anthracite, who
is rarely allowed to leave her room in the East tower (the one
with the bars on the window). Terrible thing, inbreeding … |
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Neal Stephenson is one of the pillars of modern progressive
fiction IMO. It's too bad he's such a feckin' slow writer. |
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We have our own neanderthals here in Northern
Appalachia. Interestingly, they're not gengineered but
simply a curious result of recursive evolution. In fact,
there's one loitering in my dooryard right now. Hang on... |
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Okay, I'm back. I had to go find one of the custom-loaded
12ga shells I use to get their attention. |
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//North-north-west wing of Buchanan Towers// I
think you're confusing it with the portrait gallery.
It's true that our line can be traced back a very,
very
long way, but we're sapiens through and through. |
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Also, please do not disparage the Staff. I should
perhaps mention that, since the late 900s, all of
them have been required to become proficient
with the longbow, the mace and various types of
sword (in accordance with prevailing fashion; we
are considering adopting the taser - must move
with the times). Many of them, I know, are just
itching for an opportunity to display their
proficiency. |
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We're not casting aspersions on YOUR ancestry, [MB]. And
someone (something? ) like Cousin Anthracite sometimes shows
up even in the best-regulated bloodlines. We understand the
term is" sport" or" throwback" (or possibly"mutant") |
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We were referring of course to the lower orders of your
extensive domestic
staff, and all merit to you for giving them food, shelter and a
meaningful existance. |
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All of my "domestics" are "domesticated", I assure
you. We also avoid the use of phrases such as "lower
orders". Even my gardener's gardener has a
gardener. |
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That's an excessive amount of security. |
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Or an excessive amount of insecurity. |
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//"I can create a Neanderthal baby, if I can find a
willing woman," George Church told German
newspaper Spiegel Online. The DNA of the
Neanderthal, a long extinct relative of man, has
been more or less rebuilt, a process called genetic
sequencing.// (From the linked article in ... ah,
Fox News.) |
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First off, I know George Church (ish). He is a very
smart cookie but I'll guarantee he was either
misquoted or joking. |
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Second, the Neanderthal genome has not been
"more or less rebuilt". The best assembled
sequence at present is very, very fragmentary;
and it has been assembled (in silico) using the
human genome as a reference. Which is fine
except that you will, by definition, miss all of the
large-scale differences (rearrangements,
duplications) which probably account for most of
the phenotypic differences between humans and
Neanderthals. |
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Even the _human_ genome has not, contrary to
popular belief, been properly and fully sequenced
yet. It has gaps (which are probably very
interesting bits) and many deletions of
[functionally very important] duplicated regions.
If you gave someone the ability to create any
organism from its genome, they could not (at
present) create a viable human. |
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Next, even if we had a complete Neanderthal
genome sequence sitting on a hard-drive, we
would not yet be able to build chromosome-sized
pieces of DNA. Craig Venter (pauses to spit) used
some very smart people to build a 500kb genome,
stick it into a cell very similar to the one the
sequence came from, and create a viable
unicellular organism. 500kb is 1/1000th the size of
a typical human chromosome. |
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Next next, even if we could build chromosome-
sized Neanderthal DNA molecules, we would not
be able to package them into chromosomes, nor
overlay all the chemical and structural
modifications that the chromosomes of a
fertilized egg start out with. |
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If we could do all of this, _then_ we could
probably create a Neanderthal quite easily.
Cloning a human (or Neanderthal) from a viable
cell is probably very straightforward. But
some of the problems in getting to that point are
very hard, and it's going
to be 20 years (I'd actually guess 50, but biology
always outstrips expectations) before we can
solve them. It's a project which will probably be
worth funding in ten or fifteen years' time. |
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George Church knows all this, which is why I say he
was either misquoted or joking. |
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Ah, sorry, bit of a rant there. |
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No need to apologise, [MaxwellBuchanan]; input from someone with Actual Knowledge is always welcome. |
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The world is full of humour. The Nazis for instance, would probably not be particularly pleased to know that the African peoples are actually the purest "human", ie: homo sapiens; Neanderthals having figured most prominently in the ancestry of peoples of northern climes. |
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There are still nazis around. Why not ask some of them? |
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//But I thought we were all a mix of Neanderthal,
Denisovan and Homosapien DNA ? // The jury is
still somewhat out on that one. |
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//I wonder if Neanderthals were particularly
gassy.//
That's an intriguing question. People have
inferred that they had bigger brains than us, based
on their skulls. They have also suggested that
Neanderthals were too heavy-boned to swim well. |
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However, as far as I know there is no evidence to
show that the skull was not some sort of gas
chamber. It may well be that they evolved gas-
filled heads as a means of preserving bouyancy
and thereby avoiding drownage. |
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Why would big bones prevent you swimming? The
pachyderms swim quite well. |
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