My Neanderthal sex secret: modern European's great-great grandparent link

The first modern humans to arrive in Europe did not wait long to have sex with Neanderthals, according to experts in ancient DNA.

Tests on the remains of a man who lived in Europe about 40,000 years ago found he had two to four times more Neanderthal DNA than any other modern human tested. He inherited the DNA when an ancestor had sex with a Neanderthal about 200 years earlier, or four to six generations back in his family tree.

Though present day humans have at most only a few percent Neanderthal DNA each, when added together, the global population carries about a fifth of the Neanderthal genome.

Genetic tests show that most Neanderthal DNA was rapidly lost from the modern human genome. One theory is that mixed children grew up to be less fertile, or were less likely to reach fertile age, meaning their DNA vanished quickly from the gene pool.

In the latest study, scientists used a dentist’s drill to remove a small amount of bone for genetic tests. The results, reported in Nature, are remarkable. The man had 6-9% Neanderthal DNA, far more than people alive today. But the amount was not the only surprise. The Neanderthal DNA was present in large chunks, meaning he had a Neanderthal ancestor in his recent past. Half of one entire chromosome was pure Neanderthal.

A great discovery that will help to understand better the human´s genome because it was unknown until today that our genome contains Neanderthal genes, even if it is that little.

Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/22/my-neanderthal-sex-secret-modern-europeans-great-great-grandparent-link