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Neandertals Live On in Our Genomes 也许你身上存有尼安德特人的基因

Fifty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens weren't the only game in town. We were just one of several species of hominids roaming the Earth, like the Neandertals in Eurasia. And when our sapiens ancestors came in contact with them, they sometimes hooked up. Which means many people today of Eurasian descent still carry copies of Neandertal genes². But what do those genes do?

五万年前，智人并非世上唯一的人类。我们只是徘徊于世的几种原始人之一，就像欧亚大陆的尼安德特人一样。我们的智人祖先会与他们接触并且有时也会联姻。这意味着今天有许多欧亚血统的人仍然携带尼安德特人的基因。但是，这些基因是做什么的呢?

\Researchers tried to answer that question by examining the modern human genome. And they found that, on average, Neandertal versions of genes are not active as much as their modern human counterparts in the brain—and the testicles. Meaning Neandertal variants³ have less influence there. Possibly, researchers say, because those tissues underwent significant changes since what became modern humans and Neandertals diverged⁴ 700,000 years ago.

研究人员试图通过检验现代人类的基因组来解答这个问题。他们发现，平均而言，尼安德特人的基因版本在大脑和睾丸中并不像现代人类一样活跃。这意味着尼安德特人的基因变体在这些组织中的影响较小。研究人员说，可能是由于70万年前，变成现代人类的古人与尼安德特人出现分化后，这些组织经历了巨大的变化。

"Really, our results show that Neandertal sequences that are present in modern humans aren't just silent remnants of hybridization that occurred 50,000 years ago, but they really have widespread measurable impacts on gene¹ expression to this day." Rajiv McCoy, an evolutionary⁵ geneticist at the University of Washington. In other words, genes we got from Neandertals play roles in the activation⁶ of various other of our genes, leading to the production of different kinds of proteins.

“实际上，我们的研究结果表明，现代人类体内的尼安德特人序列不仅是5万年前杂化现象的无声残留物，它们至今都对基因表达有着广泛而重要的影响。”华盛顿大学(University of Washington)的进化遗传学家拉吉夫·麦考伊(Rajiv McCoy)说道。换句话说，我们从尼安德特人那里得到的基因在激活其他基因的过程中起着作用，并导致不同种类的蛋白质的产生。

The study is in the journal Cell.

这项研究发表在《细胞》杂志上。

It also turns out that, for one gene in particular, if you carry the Neandertal mutation⁷, "you have slightly lower risk of schizophrenia. And you also have slightly increased height on average."

结果表明，对于某个特定基因来说，如果你携带尼安德特人的基因突变，“你患精神分裂症的风险就会稍微低一些。而且平均来说，你的身高也会略高。”

The Neandertals left their mark on lots of modern human traits, in addition to schizophrenia and height. But McCoy says, keep in mind: "These are complex traits. And they're controlled by thousands of different genes, and we're measuring statistically⁸ significant effects." Neandertals are long gone—but some of their genes live on.

除了精神分裂症和身高，尼安德特人还在许多现代人的特征上留下了印记。但是麦考伊说，要谨记:“这些特性都很复杂。它们由数千个不同的基因控制，我们测量的是统计上较显著的影响。”尼安德特人早已消失，但他们的一些基因却存了活下来。