Not paracetamol - Neanderthal?!?! (Don't tell the US president)

This is fascinating, yet I would be highly suspicious of reaching conclusions due to the limited availability of clinical data, especially as it’s in the US. The study makes this limitation abundantly clear, so I agree that “more research is necessary”.

I would be interested to understand more about this point:

Hybridization in non-human species is recognized as a destabilizing event with the potential to promote compensatory adaptation in other regions of the genome and, ultimately, speciation in some lineages [40]. Therefore, there is an additional possibility that Homo sapiens specific variants that evolved after Neanderthal introgression may nevertheless be in influenced by these earlier events.

Separately from this study, there is an ongoing argument around classifying non-Homo Sapiens as humans, e.g., should we call Neanderthals humans or are they a different species. So is the study alluding to Neanderthals not being human? If yes, that may have negative connotations if it is being linked to autism. I prefer to think of Neanderthals being human, especially since it is suggested that we contain DNA from multiple types of yet to be identified ancestor.

My DNA has been analysed and in common with most people of European heritage, I have around 2% Neanderthal DNA. Some of this means I am likely to be a better sprinter than long distance runner— correct— well, it was at one time! 

Can I join you at the camp fire? 

I share your suspicion ArchaeC  of research limitations and also when there is an element of "fashionability" in this case combining two scientific hot topics.

Nonetheless it is interesting isn't it! (also with Jane Goodall recently passing there's a thread that joins the pattern maybe).

I remember learning on one of the silly number of podcasts that I consume that roughly 60% of the Neanderthal genome is shared out in living hominids - yes I agree that hominid means "human" and maybe in some cases "great apes" - I subscribe to Neanderthals as being humans too :-)

The camp fire is always free for other humans (or should I say trusted animals?) to sit around :-) along with sharing food, water and stories that's a basic given (hehe unless really out of sorts when it's best to tell to go in the cave and do some paintings or clear off and gather some wood for the fire!)  

If our descendants in thousands of years from now were to see some of my ‘cave art’, they might suggest that Sapiens were unsophisticated and unintelligent. I suspect that would not be said of the gorilla or chimp!

ArchaeC said:

demonstrates much human/chimpanzee shared behaviour.

Ah yes well spotted ArchaeC - you've worked in the public sector as well maybe!  (Ok a cheap joke I did get your point and my apologies to chimpanzees who I am grossly maligning by it...)

Thanks for the link to the article - I recall learning that from a BBC podcast during the past year.  Sorry I neglected to give the appropriate gender in my earlier comment.  As  parent of 2 daughters I say "yey go girls"!   Regretfully I haven't been able to find it to share it.

In searching I did come across this which I now also remember hearing - it's only short but it might be interesting to you

Discovery - Obsessed with the Quest: Inside the Minds of Chimpanzees - BBC Sounds

When I was a uni student a friend said I could go to any lecture I liked on campus and they invited me to come to one on animal behaviour with them.  The lecturer started off by saying words to the effect of "this is animal behaviour not human behaviour I am talking about".  When they got to the bit about hippopotamuses solving territorial disputes by pitching up on their hind legs and breathing in the face of one another I was reminded of a few people tho'.

OK I admit it, I indulge in zoomorphism.  I believe, fortunately, I am a not a zoomorph although come to think of it I have been known to monkey and/or horse about a bit.

Just to be clear no animals were harmed in the writing of this post.  :-)

Best Wishes

Thank you for that Phased  I think the study in your link combined with your account of your role as Union Health & Safety Rep demonstrates much human/chimpanzee shared behaviour.

This article in New Scientists suggests that female chimpanzees leaving a group to join another group can pass on their skills to the new group.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2457464-chimpanzees-seem-to-get-more-technologically-advanced-through-culture/

Drawing conclusions from limited resources and chimpanzees? Sorry again,  Deserves a better answer, sorry for being glib ArchaeC I think that thus focuses on "telling stories" (around the camp fire or otherwise) about something that another group member around the camp fire doesn't know.  Chimpanzees have been demonstrated to do this in respect of pointing out danger to other group members Wild Chimpanzees Inform Ignorant Group Members of Danger - ScienceDirect.   Personally this is a kind of hard wired behaviour I engage in a lot  (hehe I'm a union health and safety rep(  Whether one can expand this to chimpanzees "teaching" other chimps about things they don't know... I seem to recall reading that skills for tool use travel with chimpanzees when they leave their parent group.  Whether this knowledge is gained by members of the new group observing and copying or whether the travelling chimp deliberately decides to go out of their way to pass the skill/knowledge on I don't know :-)

LOL

It is my great regret that I don't know any chimpanzees to ask ArchaeC  :-)

Well, come to think of it, I’m guilty too, as are all Sapiens. Now what about Chimpanzees …?

"it draws conclusions from limited sources" that's me all over ArchaeC !

Ah, I get you - thanks for explaining ArchaeC  Sorry I misunderstood :-)  

It’s fact, but it really is ok because I’m good at other things. My point being (although I didn’t state it here) that some research is doomed to failure because it draws conclusions from limited sources and isn’t representative of the population.

hehehe art is a subjective experience!  Or just a load of Jackson Pollock's?  Please, may I say, don't be tough on yourself - leave that to the critics....  

hehehe art is a subjective experience!  Or just a load of Jackson Pollock's?  Please, may I say, don't be tough on yourself - leave that to the critics....  

Ah, I get you - thanks for explaining ArchaeC  Sorry I misunderstood :-)  

It’s fact, but it really is ok because I’m good at other things. My point being (although I didn’t state it here) that some research is doomed to failure because it draws conclusions from limited sources and isn’t representative of the population.