2022年经济学人 2022年诺奖获得者破译尼安德特人基因组(1)（在线收听）

DNA grants researchers a glimpse of Neanderthal family life.

DNA让研究人员得以一窥尼安德特人的家族生活。

Fresh from his award a couple of weeks ago of a Nobel prize for his work on the DNA of early human species, including Neanderthals, Svante Paabo (or, more accurately, he and a group of his acolytes) have just published in Nature one of the biggest genetic studies yet of that species.

几周前，诺贝尔奖颁给了斯万特·佩博(或者更准确地说，他和他的团队)，以表彰其在例如尼安德特人等早期人类物种的DNA方面所做出的贡献，斯万特·佩博不久前在《自然》杂志上发表了迄今为止关于尼安德特人最重要的基因研究之一。

These Neanderthals lived 50,000 years ago in the Altai mountains of Russia.

这些尼安德特人于5万年前生活在俄罗斯阿尔泰山区域。

The remains under study - 17 bone and tooth samples belonging to 13 individuals - came from two caves about 100km apart.

用于研究的遗骸——属于13个个体的17份骨骼和牙齿样本——来自相距约100公里的两个洞穴。

One, called Chagyrskaya, yielded 11 individuals (three boys, three girls, three men and two women).

其中11个个体来自Chagyrskaya洞穴(包括三个男孩、三个女孩、三个男人和两个女人)。

The other, Okladnikov, yielded two (a boy and a woman).

两个个体来自Okladnikov洞穴(一个男孩和一个女人)。

Taken together, this work almost doubles the number of Neanderthal genomes that have been described.

这项工作中13个个体的基因加起来，几乎能让目前已知的尼安德特人基因组的数量翻一番。

It also gives a tantalising glimpse into Neanderthal social lives.

它还让我们得以一窥尼安德特人未知且诱人的社交生活。

It is extremely unlikely that all of these individuals were contemporaries.

所有这些个体同属一个时代的可能性极小。

But the researchers think they have found both a trio and a pair of relatives.

但研究人员认为，他们发现了一个有亲缘关系的三人组和一个两人组。

They did this by computing a value called DNA divergence.

方法是计算DNA位点差异。

DNA divergence compares nuclear genomes by choosing sections of their DNA at random and checking if, for each chosen section, the two genomes match.

DNA位点差异的计算需要比较不同个体的核基因组，也就是随机选择个体的核基因组DNA片段，并检查选择的两个片段的基因组是否匹配。

The more similar the DNA sequences are, the more closely, it can be presumed, the two individuals are related.

两个个体的DNA序列越相似，他们在亲缘关系上则越接近。

Applying this approach to the Chagyrskaya remains revealed a father, his daughter and a close maternal relative who probably shared a grandmother with the father.

将这种方法应用到Chagyrskaya洞穴的遗骸中，发现了三个存在亲缘关系的个体：包括一位父亲、他的女儿和他的一位母系近亲，这位母系近亲很可能与他是同祖母的关系。

Separately, it matched a young boy to an adult female relative, potentially a cousin, aunt or grandmother.

此外，研究还发现一名年幼的男孩与一名成年女性有亲缘关系，这位成年女性可能是男孩的表亲、阿姨或祖母。

The individuals in the Okladnikov cave were related closely neither to each other nor to anyone from Chagyrskaya.

Okladnikov洞穴中的个体彼此之间亲缘关系不近，和Chagyrskaya洞穴的个体联系也不紧密。

Yet the researchers found an intriguing connection.

但是，研究人员发现了一个有趣的联系。

The woman's mitochondrial DNA matched that of a man from Chagyrskaya.

Okladnikov洞穴中女子的线粒体DNA与Chagyrskaya洞穴一名男子的线粒体DNA相匹配。