Neanderthals who are in my distant family tree that is.
I've never been bothered by the thought that I likely descend partially from Neanderthals. Indeed, I long ago concluded that the theory that Neanderthals weren't out competed, and weren't wiped out, but disappeared to, well, attraction, was likely the correct theory. And now I'm proven almost certainly correct.
Oh, now I know, you have in mind that obsolete image of a hump backed Neanderthal, but that's no longer the correct one. We know know that while they were heavy boned and stockily built, they probably didn't look all that different from heavily boned stocky people you run into today. Most of us don't look strongly like Neanderthals, but some of us do. And no doubt there were comely Neanderthal.
Anyhow, and not very surprisingly in my view, it turns out that Europeans tend to have a percentage of Neaderthal DNA in their genetic makeup. And apaprently part of that DNA is related to their immune systems, whcih are sort of turbocharged.
That's a good thing in one way, but as allergies are basically an over-response by the immune system to something, that's bad.
And as I'm quite allergic to some things, for me that's a bummer.
But, as interesting as this new information is, I have to wonder why it didn't apparently plague Neanderthals, assuming that it didn't.
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