OBJECTIVE The objective of this article is to demonstrate that the genetic code can be studied and represented in a 3-D Sphered Cube for bioinformatics and for education by using the graphical help of the ancient "Book of Changes" or I Ching for the comparison, pair by pair, of the three basic characteristics of nucleotides: H-bonds, molecular structure, and their tautomerism. METHODS The sou...

Scientists and journalists don’t always see the world the same way. A “first” often makes news. But in science, the “second” – that is the confirmation – may actually be more important. Journalists are like toddlers, though, when it comes to seconds. They often need coaxing. Consider two recent cases. First, Neanderthal DNA. Back in 1997, reporters made a bit of a fuss when scientists announced...

Next-generation sequencing methods use massively parallel detection of short sequencing reactions, making them ideal for the analysis of ancient DNA. In this issue, Green et al. (2008) exploit this feature to infer the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of one Neanderthal and place bounds on its time of common ancestry with modern humans.

High quality Altai Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes are revealing which regions of archaic hominin DNA have persisted in the modern human genome. A number of these regions are associated with response to infection and immunity, with a suggestion that derived Neanderthal alleles found in modern Europeans and East Asians may be associated with autoimmunity. As such Neanderthal genomes are an ind...

One of the most important challenges in anthropology is understanding the disappearance of Neanderthals. Previous research suggests that Neanderthals had a narrower diet than early modern humans, in part because they lacked various social and technological advances that lead to greater dietary variety, such as a sexual division of labor and the use of complex projectile weapons. The wider diet ...

Clinical psychologists don’t often venture into the world of paleoanthropology, but the hypothesis that bipolar disorder evolved as an adaptation to Pleistocene climatic conditions, landed me in this fascinating and contentious arena. Bipolar disorder is correlated with a cold adapted build, and its symptoms are consistent with seasonal adaptation. For example, symptoms of major depression, suc...

OBJECTIVES: We describe a new computer reconstruction to obtain complete anatomical information of the ectoand endocranium from the imperfectly preserved skull of the Neanderthal Amud 1. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were obtained from computed tomography scans of the fossil cranium. Adhesive and plaster were then virtually removed from the original specimen, and the fragments comprising the foss...

Two recently published papers describe nuclear DNA sequences that were obtained from the same Neanderthal fossil. Our reanalyses of the data from these studies show that they are not consistent with each other and point to serious problems with the data quality in one of the studies, possibly due to modern human DNA contaminants and/or a high rate of sequencing errors.