Chris Stringer

Tweets my own; likes/retweets do not necessarily signify agreement with content.

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

How Humans Really Evolved From Africa https://t.co/NgIZ877VMd via @YouTube

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Females shape hunting of vertebrates in wild bonobos: Current Biology https://t.co/iv7rvI2dCn

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Stash of hundreds of human teeth reveal surprising Maya burial practice https://t.co/Bpf1jt3lbs

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

If humans went extinct, this is what would happen to life on Earth, according to scientists. Climate change is causing a mass extinction that may eliminate our species. But if we disappear could Mother Nature eventually recover?https://t.co/dSPdn1zgsA

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Overlooked brown fat in our bodies linked to wide range of health benefits https://t.co/L6Rho5Did9

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Interhemispheric monsoon dynamics over the past 450,000 years (paywalled) https://t.co/o7GOzIDzvz

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Very useful review of Chinese palaeoanthropology by C. Bae..https://t.co/2DDaWj5PjL

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Upper Palaeolithic mariners? Evaluating experimental evidence for intentional early seafaring | Antiquity https://t.co/jAHKLEcB0y

[Nrken19 @nrken19]

Early Gravettian genomic data from Western Europe reveal population movements before the LGM

https://t.co/uVH8FRG7yE

[Alexandr Rakitko @AlexRakitko]

Svante Pääbo and colleagues used AlphaGenome as a time machine to reconstruct the evolution of human gene regulation. An impressive new bioRxiv preprint! 🧬⏩

Fifty years ago, scientists proposed that the differences between humans and chimpanzees might be driven less by changes in genes themselves and more by changes in how those genes are regulated.

The authors revisited this hypothesis using deep learning and identified more than 71,000 genomic regions predicted to have gained regulatory activity along the human lineage. But the most interesting finding is how these changes happened!

In 71% of cases, evolution repurposed existing regulatory elements rather than creating new ones. A single mutation could introduce a tissue-specific transcription factor binding site, activating an existing element in another tissue.

To investigate this, the researchers used AlphaGenome to predict the regulatory effects of 17 million nucleotide substitutions, linking them to gene expression differences between humans and other great apes.

Interestingly, the vast majority of these regions fell outside known Human Accelerated Regions, genomic regions that evolved unusually rapidly along the human lineage. This suggests that the rate of sequence evolution does not necessarily reflect its functional impact.

Comparisons with Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes revealed that 99.6% of the regulatory gains fixed in modern humans and successfully dated arose before our evolutionary split from these archaic lineages.

There are also fascinating examples involving individual genes. One is SLC47A1, which encodes a transporter involved in eliminating drugs and toxins. The researchers identified five regulatory gains associated with increased expression in the human liver. Reverting these changes to their ancestral states in silico reduced predicted gene expression by 60%.

Of course, many of these predictions still require experimental validation. But the broader idea is remarkable: ancient DNA has allowed us to discover which mutations occurred in the past. Now, deep learning is beginning to reveal how those mutations may have changed the way genes worked.

https://t.co/LIUmvkZr3J

#aDNA #evolution #regulation #AlphaGenome

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Paleolithic human DNA reveals east-west connections across Ice Age Europe
https://t.co/suTogF0Kxv

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Mammoth bones at a 32,000-year-old camp in Germany suggest Stone Age hunters took down live giants
https://t.co/h29LcUaNZ4

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

This comic book artist is drawing women into prehistory | Science | AAAS https://t.co/X7hT6vG0YE

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Unlocking the secrets of the ‘Dragon Man’ skull – and what it reveals about human evolution
https://t.co/7Cc34xDB7y

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Non-adaptive evolutionary forces predominantly shape nucleotide composition near human transcription start sites
https://t.co/mM27IcMN2T

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Scientists discover a surprising secret behind the human brain’s wrinkles https://t.co/6yoqHCbpbd

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Our Slow Development Is Key to Human Uniqueness https://t.co/YyKCeQQ2s9

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Upper Palaeolithic mariners? Evaluating experimental evidence for intentional early seafaring | Antiquity https://t.co/jAHKLEcB0y

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Very useful review of Chinese palaeoanthropology by C. Bae..https://t.co/2DDaWj5PjL

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Interhemispheric monsoon dynamics over the past 450,000 years (paywalled) https://t.co/o7GOzIDzvz

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Overlooked brown fat in our bodies linked to wide range of health benefits https://t.co/L6Rho5Did9