More than 80% of Tibetans carry a high-altitude adaptation inherited from Denisovans—an extinct human lineage first identified from DNA in a tiny finger bone. Interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago gave their ancestors an EPAS1 variant that proved extraordinarily valuable in the thin air of the Tibetan Plateau.
Source ↗
👁 0
💬 0
A fragment of a child’s little finger, small enough to offer almost no anatomical clues, revealed an entire extinct human lineage. DNA recovered from the bone showed that its owner belonged neither to our species nor to the Neanderthals. Researchers named the newly recognized population Denisovans after the Siberian cave where the fragment was found.
Their genetic afterlife reaches far beyond that cave. One Denisovan-derived stretch of DNA around EPAS1, a gene involved in the response to low oxy
Their genetic afterlife reaches far beyond that cave. One Denisovan-derived stretch of DNA around EPAS1, a gene involved in the response to low oxy
Comments (0)