Did Christ die for Neanderthals?

When Did Neanderthals and Modern Humans Diverge?

The availability of sequences from the mtDNA hypervariable region I and II of a specimen of the Neanderthal,1,2 Homo neanderthalensis, permits estimation of the time of divergence of Neanderthals and modern humans. Based on substitution rates derived from comparison of human and chimpanzee, Krings et al. provided an estimate of 550–690 KY1 and 317–741 KY2 before present for the split between th...

Bonaparte Did Not Die of Cancer

Did Jesus die of a 'broken heart'?

Could these biblical texts be interpreted as the historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth died of heart rupture or ‘a broken heart’ causing pericardial tamponade (punctured by the soldier’s spear)? During the last decade, a strange syndrome of extensive reversible cardiac dysfunction precipitated by acute emotional or physical stress has been increasingly recognized. The syndrome has various ...

Modern Humans Did Not Admix with Neanderthals during Their Range Expansion into Europe

The process by which the Neanderthals were replaced by modern humans between 42,000 and 30,000 before present is still intriguing. Although no Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineage is found to date among several thousands of Europeans and in seven early modern Europeans, interbreeding rates as high as 25% could not be excluded between the two subspecies. In this study, we introduce a re...

Virtual Neanderthals

Our closest hominid relatives may have died out 30,000 years before the arrival of the computer, but thanks to modern genomics and scanning technology, they are now very present in the 21st century and can even help us understand our own species.