10.19.07
More on Neanderthals/FoxP2 gene
In a new paper, researchers have determined that neanderthals probably had our version of this gene and not the chimp version. People are upset because previously, it was thought that FoxP2 may have altered after the neanderthal/human split. Honestly the difference between the chimp and human versions is something like two nucleic acid changes …. this new finding has little or no implications for whether neanderthals could speak. So the whole debate is overblown. Way overblown.
This item is not something that I would blog about, but in the article there was a very interesting passage that you would familiar to anyone who wanders the halls of any academic institution, but never in the NY Times. From the article:
Why was such a striking result not presented to a better known journal such as Nature? [It was published in Current Biology] Dr. Paabo replied that he had done so, but that “Nature rejected it without review. I was surprised.”