Neanderthal man lives on in some of us: the genome of our extinct sister species has been sequenced

Just over 150 years ago, the first fossils of our closest relative, the Neanderthal, were discovered in Germany. From analyzing these bones and comparing them to ours, we have predicted what the Neanderthal might look like, when the Neanderthal emerged, roamed, and eventually went extinct about 30,000 years ago. During their travels, they would have encountered the ancestors of modern day humans. But much controversy has existed on whether there was any interbreeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans. Fossils have not given us a definitive answer and the Neanderthal mitochondrial genome suggested no gene mixing had occurred. But now the complete nuclear genome has been sequenced, and it has given us some surprising answers.