The gene tweaks that let us speak

• Autores: Andy Coghlan
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3141, 2017, pág. 6
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Liran Carmel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues examined DNA from two modern people and four humans who lived within the last 50,000 years. They also looked at Neanderthals, a Denisovan, six chimpanzees and data from public gene databases. They looked for genes that became more or less active over the course of evolution. To identify these epigenetic changes, they examined whether genes had methyl groups attached to them. In general, methylated genes are switched off and unmethylated genes are switched on. So by looking at methylation patterns, the researchers could track if gene activity was cranking up or down.