PhiloeBedoe: [i1079.photobucket.com image 250x186]

pretty mutch

What a mystery human may look like:

This is fascinating stuff. A boon for racists, who will see this as a revival of polygenesis, the idea that different human races are inherently different because they evolved from distinct genetic origins, but fascinating nonetheless.

/personally believes in hybrid vigor
//boom chicka wow

Shonokins
Lilin
Shedim
Jinn
Fey

Always standing beyond the light of the campfire, never coming close enough for us to get a good look.

Coelacanth: Shonokins
Lilin
Shedim
Jinn
Fey

Always standing beyond the light of the campfire, never coming close enough for us to get a good look.

Gave me a chill.

towatchoverme: What a mystery human may look like:

[www.scifiscoop.com image 799x451]

Came here for the BSG, but pretty sure she didn't make it down there. I remember she was an angel or some such afterwards....

spiderfishx: Came here for the BSG, but pretty sure she didn't make it down there. I remember she was an angel or some such afterwards....

They're not called angels. They're 'messengers' from a higher power. What that power is, is a mystery.

Coelacanth: Always standing beyond the light of the campfire, never coming close enough for us to get a good look.

Yeah, it's always a shock in the morning. What did those fermented berries make me DO?

FTA: "They had to be similar enough in appearance to anatomically modern humans that reproduction would happen," Akey said. However, with no fossils in hand, he acknowledged, it's impossible to say what these people looked like.

Hmm. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say they looked like.... modern humans? That might, you know, might, explain the "lack of fossil evidence".

tinyarena: No, we've just lost all the pre-History is all. Too bad too. Must have been interesting.

It's not so much lost, we can't see it through our ignorance. .

"There is a mystery link so there's creationism so Sarah Palin is automatically president" in -5, -6, -7...

Time travelers who ignored the "don't breed with the locals" rule.

That's how the Martians seeded earth, doggy style.

I'm going with Yeti. Probably Yetis on vacation in Africa.

/maybe flaming pie plates

I suspect that the more DNA studies we do, the more examples of this kind of thing we will find. What makes this one remarkable is that it is so recent. For almost all of the 7 million years since our last common ancestor with the apes, there have been multiple types of hominin living side by side and, it increasingly seems, cross-breeding. The modern situation of just one human species is the exception.

Once upon a time, paleoanthropologists assumed that human evolution would be a simple succession (when Neanderthals were first discovered, it was assumed that they were a human ancestor). Then it became clear that it was more like a bush, with multiple branches co-existing. And now it is beginning to appear that our history is even more tangled, with branches crossing back into each other.

And yes, racists will probably try to make something of this, but we are talking about very small fractions of the genome here. If people were dogs, we would all be the same breed.

It was actually a goat. Early humans were lonely too.

As one of my bio-Anthropology mentors liked to say, "Humans love to exchange genetic information."

AustinFakir: This is fascinating stuff. A boon for racists, who will see this as a revival of polygenesis, the idea that different human races are inherently different because they evolved from distinct genetic origins, but fascinating nonetheless.

/personally believes in hybrid vigor
//boom chicka wow

I think racists will more likely capitalize on the 'hey, I knew them Afercans have sex with monkees, and that's how we got the AIDS too' angle, since rational arguments aren't exactly their strong suit.

Anybody catch the link to the UF study about humans existing at the same time in FL as large, extinct mammals? 13,000 years ago? That can't be right. Jesus and Moses weren't born more than a few thousand years ago, and Columbus didn't discover America until 1742!

/what?

//don't look at me like that

SoupJohnB: Anybody catch the link to the UF study about humans existing at the same time in FL as large, extinct mammals? 13,000 years ago? That can't be right. Jesus and Moses weren't born more than a few thousand years ago, and Columbus didn't discover America until 1742!

Clovis Indians. There was an extinction level event that wiped out very nearly all the megafauna except for bears and bison, and there were so few Clovis Indians left, that there was considerable inbreeding with remarkable results.13,000 we call the descendants of those Clovis Indians, Bigfoot.

djscram: Time travelers who ignored the "don't breed with the locals" rule.

There was a future shock 2000 a.d. comic based on this premise which was awesome.

phlegmmo: "And here they are nowwwww."

shut it down, hit the lights

.10/10

Coelacanth: SoupJohnB: Anybody catch the link to the UF study about humans existing at the same time in FL as large, extinct mammals? 13,000 years ago? That can't be right. Jesus and Moses weren't born more than a few thousand years ago, and Columbus didn't discover America until 1742!

Clovis Indians. There was an extinction level event that wiped out very nearly all the megafauna except for bears and bison, and there were so few Clovis Indians left, that there was considerable inbreeding with remarkable results.13,000 we call the descendants of those Clovis Indians, Bigfoot.

I see your "Bigfoot are Indians" and raise you "Out Of America"

LewDux: I see your "Bigfoot are Indians" and raise you "Out Of America"

I'm leaning more towards "Out of China" myself.

czetie: And yes, racists will probably try to make something of this, but we are talking about very small fractions of the genome here. If people were dogs, we would all be the same breed.

Well if they are racists against blacks then they are almost certainly of Neandertal descent in much the same way as these scientist are proposing for some African populations. The difference is that we don't have, to our knowledge, remains of these extinct* African populations. This might because Africa is still rather poorly explored in terms of fossil humans. Most fossil in Africa have been in South Africa and Rift Valley. There is no reason to think that they were confined to this area. Also not every area had opportunities for fossilization.

*except for a small amount of crossbreeding with modern humans

Coelacanth: spiderfishx: Came here for the BSG, but pretty sure she didn't make it down there. I remember she was an angel or some such afterwards....

They're not called angels. They're 'messengers' from a higher power. What that power is, is a mystery.

Actual Baltar and whichever six that was were down there*. You know, I know about Farming.
*wiki says it was Caprica Six.

Head Six and Head Baltar were the messengers.