https://www.earthmagazine.org/tags/denisovan/ Recent content in Denisovan on EARTH Magazine Hugo en-US American Geosciences Institute. All rights reserved. Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:39:55 -0500 https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/improved-genetic-simulations-identify-human-genes-passed-down-neanderthals-denisovans/ Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:39:55 -0500 https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/improved-genetic-simulations-identify-human-genes-passed-down-neanderthals-denisovans/ <figure class="earth-figure"> <img src="https://www.americangeosciences.org/static/earth/improved-genetic-simulations-identify-human-genes-passed-down-neanderthals-denisovans/neanderthalNHM_paulhudsonCCBY2.jpg" alt="A reconstruction of a Neanderthal stands at the Natural History Museum in London. Genetic traces of Neanderthals and Denisovans have been identified in the DNA of modern humans. Credit: Paul Hudson, CC BY 2.0" loading="eager" decoding="async"> <figcaption>A reconstruction of a Neanderthal stands at the Natural History Museum in London. Genetic traces of Neanderthals and Denisovans have been identified in the DNA of modern humans. Credit: Paul Hudson, CC BY 2.0</figcaption> </figure> <p>You could have your mother to blame for a predisposition to baldness, but you might need to thank a Neanderthal for your ability to fight off disease. In the past decade, researchers have identified a number of genes in the human genome that they believe originated in <em>Homo sapiens&rsquo;</em> close evolutionary kin, Neanderthals and Denisovans. Now, a <a href="http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/10/10/molbev.msw216">study </a>published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution has identified additional traces of such archaic genes in modern human DNA.</p>