Neanderthals wouldn't have eaten their sprouts either
August 12, 2009 by Denholm Barnetson
Visitors at the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac look at a reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Spanish researchers say they have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Spanish researchers say they're a step closer to resolving a "mystery of evolution" -- why some people like Brussels sprouts but others hate them.
They have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The scientists made the discovery after recovering and sequencing a fragment of the TAS2R38 gene taken from 48,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found at a site in El Sidron, in northern Spain, they said in a report released Wednesday by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
"This indicates that variation in bitter taste perception predates the divergence of the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans," they said.
Substances similar to PTC give a bitter taste to green vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage as well as some fruits.
But they are also present in some poisonous plants, so having a distaste for it makes evolutionary sense.
"The sense of bitter taste protects us from ingesting toxic substances," the report said.
What intrigued the researchers most is that Neanderthals also possessed a recessive variant of the TAS2R38 gene which made some of them unable to taste PTC -- an inability they share with around one third of modern humans.
"This feature ... is a mystery of evolution," said the report.
"These (bitter) compounds can be toxic if ingested in large quantities and it is therefore difficult to understand the evolutionary existence of individuals who cannot detect them."
The report's lead author, Carles Lalueza Fox of the University of Barcelona, speculated that such people may be "able to detect some other compound not yet identified."
This would have given them some genetic advantage and explain the reason for the continuation of the variant gene.
Neanderthals and modern humans shared a common ancestor from which they diverged about 300,000 years ago.
Excavations since 2000 at the site at El Sidron, in the Asturias region, have so far recovered the skeletal remains of at least 10 Neanderthal individuals.
The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years but traces of them disappear some 28,000 years ago, their last known refuge being Gibraltar.
Why they died out is a matter of furious debate because they existed alongside modern man.
The CSIS research was published in the British Royal Society's Biology Letters.
(c) 2009 AFP
Sep 12, 2005 |
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The same evolutionary period gave birth to our conservative and liberal instinctual split: www.politicalspecies.com
The implication is that either they did not breed true (like a mule) or that they did not sucessfully breed at all.
No, that's at best a hypothesis. If you're going to use the word theory on a science news site, at least use it in the correct context and not the layman one. :)
Anyhow, that some people are genetically indisposed to eat sprouts suggests that sprouts were never an important part of human diet. Otherwise all those poor people who don't like delicious little sprouts would be extinct.
I stand corrected,thanks.
Then how would anyone know that it coded for ginger hair? Do you have a link?
Ethelred
Well that's not true. Human beings kill each other for resources. Most likely, when human and neanderthal's would have crossed paths there wasn't as great an amount of people, meaning more available resources.
Human beings cooperate more than they dissent. We have evidence that Neanderthals may be responsible for gifting humans the genes necessary for speech development. There's evidence of shared culture, and genetic merging. You really need to stop being so down on the human race. We're not as bad as you think.
Are you suggesting that Ginger-haired people are not truly Human?
I thought we had established that as fact a long time ago. (I kid, I kid.)
What intrigued the researchers most is that Neanderthals also possessed a recessive variant of the TAS2R38 gene which made some of them unable to taste PTC -- an inability they share with around one third of modern humans. "This feature ... is a mystery of evolution," said the report.
"These (bitter) compounds can be toxic if ingested in large quantities and it is therefore difficult to understand the evolutionary existence of individuals who cannot detect them."
The report's lead author, Carles Lalueza Fox of the University of Barcelona, speculated that such people may be "able to detect some other compound not yet identified."
This would have given them some genetic advantage and explain the reason for the continuation of the variant gene.
Wouldn't a simpler hypothesis be that Neanderthals and Humans lived or live in social groups and learn from what others in the group do. Therefore they are taught what foods to eat and would less likly to ingest the posionious plants?
In other words, a social explanation rather than a biological one.
Etherled
Now to experiment:
[blockquote]
Is this part Quotable.
[/blockquote]
Good luck :-)
And by the way the q must be lower case. Every once in a while I manage to use an uppercase Q an then it doesn't work.
What happened was I made a snarky post about Dr. Milford Wolpoff's similarity to a Neanderthal. Somehow the only part of the post that wasn't marked as a quote was the link at the top. I didn't put [/blockquote] in the post yet there it was at the bottom of the it after the signature. And when I tried to edit the mess all that would show up was the first and last lines. Never seen that before. So I was trying to get the same odd result intentionally in my edit. After sleeping some and waking up I still can't match the odd behavior of the original version.
Not a redhead. My brother does have a red beard. Well it was a rusty red but now it has more gray than red.
Ethelred
And brows :)