Steamy gene pool: Extinct human relatives had sex with mystery ancestor

Has any one read this article yet, posted on NBC News? I wonder if the mysteries ancestors were aliens?

www.nbcnews.com...

reply to post by nepok


Giving you a star, only because you've never had one before

Whilst i highly doubt the alien premise, it does throw out the question about an unknown ancestor. Maybe you could add a bit more of your own thoughts and reasoning to your OP?

Hadn't read it yet, but after reading it, I don't understand how these people can be surprised by this? I guess history has taught them nothing.

Would be curious about the third group though. Wish there was more on that.

I gave OP a star because they added "sex" in the title. But I did find this interesting but am not the least surprised.

Obligatory:

I'd like to hear the rationalization for concluding that unknown DNA is alien, as in 'extra terrestrial', as opposed to alien, as in 'of currently unknown origin'.

It is possible that extra-terrestrial life may not be based on DNA. But it is a rational conclusion to assume that all life on Earth does use DNA as that's what has been observed, and therefore logical to conclude this unknown DNA originated on Earth.

More about this is found Nature

There is one more human species which is still unknown, but doesn´t mean it´s an alien one.

I believe they are now called "Ancient Alien Astronauts" (at the time of My pecking I am unaware of them using "astronaut" in order to siphon off some NASA™ fund$?)

Could these "visitors" be the Anunnaki? In Erich VonDaniken's book "Chariots of the Gods"? He has been theorizing the same thing ("They found some of our Earthly females pleasant and had secks with them..." ) of course "back then" there wasn't the intraweb and a Skeptic's Haven like ATS™ to 'debunk' anyOne so the Ones who could write/carve called them "Angels" or 'Cherub' Look at Cherub/im

I hate to be the party pooper, but the article clearly states they believe the "unknown" DNA to come from a previously undiscovered group of hominids that lived in Asia.

I would imagine that there are great many Human species that have been around, many of which we know (and most likely never know) anything about simply because the chances of any animal leaving any fossil record (or otherwise) is slim and the same applies for Humans.

Most Human's alive today will have traces of many of these previous Human lineages within them. I suspect modern Humans are the net result of hundreds of thousands of years of interbreeding, warfare and calamity involving all the previous Human species.

reply to post by dollukka


Just a minor correction 'at least one more' human species, because well Denisovans were a shock, so there may be some others like that hiding in remote nooks and crannies of our history. I was studying some bioinformatics (trying to reskiill away from my Pharmaceutical chemistry career of a decade) when the Denisovan genome was released, and the academics (genetics and anthropological) who were on campus were royally shocked. Even more shocked when the Micronesians show evidence of some Devonian genes retention (Micronesia is a long way from Siberia)

They are about six months late
www.abovetopsecret.com...

A new study of Neanderthal and Denisovan mTdna, reveals that Denisovans and Neanderthal split far earlier than was though, on the order of one million years ago
Even more surprising is the fact that the studies show the contribution of a previously unknown human ancestor.


From John Hawks' weblog,

and from the original article,

From the detailed genomes of both Neandertals and Denisovans, Pääbo and Montgomery Slatkin of the University of California, Berkeley, estimated that 17% of the Denisovan DNA was from the local Neandertals. And the comparison revealed another surprise: Four percent of the Denisovan genome comes from yet another, more ancient, human —"something unknown," Pääbo reported. "Getting better coverage and more genomes, you can start to see the networks of interactions in a world long ago," says David Kingsley, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.



Meanwhile, the article sheds light on two interesting contradictions in the Denisova data. The analysis of the high-coverage data last fall [1] noted that the pinky bone genome is consistent with a very small long-term effective size, because of its limited genetic variation ("Denisova at high coverage". These results included a "drastic decline in size" around the time the Denisovans were estimated to have separated their population from the ancestors of living sub-Saharan Africans.




That result was curious in comparison with the mtDNA evidence. The Denisovan mtDNA is substantially more divergent from living human and Neandertal mtDNA, with an estimated time for the last common ancestor of mtDNA among these groups a bit more than a million years ago.



Now, we may be learning that the Denisovan genome itself represents different ancestral groups -- not only a more ancient "something unknown" population, but substantially the local Neandertals. That kind of mixture is not the population history described by papers on the Denisova genome so far. And a third Denisovan mtDNA from one of the third molars at the site is substantially different from the other two, pointing to greater mtDNA diversity within the Denisovan population than now known from either Neandertals or living people.


So Demisovans split off from the rest of us a million years ago, and they are the product of an unknown human ancestor, and they carried 17% local neanderthal DNA, fascinating stuff.

johnhawks.net...

reply to post by Noinden


John Hawks has posited that the "archaics" that lived in south Asia (India), previous to the toba eruption were in fact denisovans. And that would be the reason modern humans came late to India.
It has also been sugjested that after the toba eruption devastated their native homeland of southeast asia, they moved north and south, that is why they are found in Siberia.

How about we just all go ahead and admit something that only a few of us have been saying all along.
Neanderthals = Orcs/Trolls
Denisovians = Ogre's/Giants
Floresienis = Hobbits, Dwarves, Little people (in the classical sense)
The "Atacama" being = Fairies, Sprites, etc
Unknown ancestor = Elves
It took science this long to prove that fantasy and myth wasn't that far off to begin with. Go humans.

All that supposed 'junk' DNA is not from aliens or from fallen Angels... that 'junk' DNA helps promote stuff like Cancers and the genetic code for specific skin blemishes like moles & such on particular parts of a face or leg or arm or where ever...

you do notice that certain birthmarks are localized to certain areas ....

such as various individuals will have moles on their right cheek...others have the blemish on their lip/mouth area and others will have moles/warts opposite what others have on their side of a face ,,,

'WELL there is a purpose behind all those tell-tale markings...


it all originates in the supposed 'Junk' DNA this thread is seemingly about
that 'Junk' code is there for a reason....and the reasons explained would be -----exhausting to read


the thread title mentions human cousins as a likely source.... what's that A missing link connection?