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Exploring the Genetic Code of the Neanderthal Scientists have sequenced DNA from one of humans' closest relatives, the Neanderthal. Guests examine what that prehistoric genetic code might tell us about how these early hominids lived, and why they became extinct. Can the genetic code also answer the question of whether Neanderthals and modern humans interbred?

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Exploring the Genetic Code of the Neanderthal

Heard on Talk of the Nation

Exploring the Genetic Code of the Neanderthal

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Scientists have sequenced DNA from one of humans' closest relatives, the Neanderthal. Guests examine what that prehistoric genetic code might tell us about how these early hominids lived, and why they became extinct. Can the genetic code also answer the question of whether Neanderthals and modern humans interbred?

Guests:

Edward "Eddy" Rubin, geneticist; director of Genomics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; director, U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute

Richard Klein, paleoanthropologist; Department of Anthropology at Stanford University