Re: Did Neanderthal cells cook as the climate warmed?


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16155-did-neanderthal-cells-cook-as-the-
climate-warmed.html

thanks, Travsky

Neanderthals may have gone extinct because their cells couldn't cope with
climate change, according to a new hypothesis presented at a genetics
conference this month.
Metabolic adaptations to Ice Age Europe may have proved costly to Neanderthals
after the continent's climate started to change, says Patrick Chinnery, a
molecular biologist at Newcastle University, UK.
He and colleague Gavin Hudson identified potentially harmful mutations in the
newly sequenced Neanderthal mitochondrial genome. In particular, the
researchers
found genes that are associated with neurodegenerative diseases and deafness.
"If they were found in modern humans they would be bad news," Chinnery says.
...

yes, the same mutations that are lethal in one species can be advantageous
in an other species

Chinnery and Hudson suggest that mutations in mitochondria helped Neanderthals
cope with the cold weather, but that when the climate started fluctuating
between warm and cold periods, they were at a disadvantage. ...
Mutations that sap this efficiency would generate heat instead - a potentially
useful trick for Neanderthals who are known to have had adaptations to cold
weather, Chinnery says. However, a warmer and less climatically stable habitat
could have spelled trouble for Neanderthals with such mutations.
Perhaps the Neanderthals' mitochondrial DNA adapted them to the cold, and they
couldn't cope when the climate started to change, he says.
However, with only a single Neanderthal DNA sequence decoded so far, that
hypothesis remains provisional.
"This 'n of 1' experiment raises a question which needs to be tested on a
large number of cases," Chinnery says.
They might not have to wait long. "We hope to be able to provide [Neanderthal]
subjects for doing that kind of analysis really soon," says Edward Green, a
researcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany. ...

not totally impossible, of course, but totally unproven -
many Hn lived in temperate climates (yes, Hs lived in warmer climates) -
we know Hn dived at least sometimes (adult men show pachyostotic skulls &
ear exostoses), mitochondria are important in oxygen supply during diving -
iow, the mutations C+H describe can at least equally wel be explained by Hn
having been more aquatic than Hs -
perhaps they should look at comparable mutations in pole foxes vs other
foxes, in grizzleys vs polar bears vs sunbears, in seals etc

--Marc Verhaegen




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