On the evening of October 3, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced. The winner is Swedish scientist Swant Parbo , in recognition of his "discovery in the extinct ancient human genome and human evolution ".
How do we become humans and what makes us humans. More than 3 years ago, Zhejiang Education Press translated and published the book "Neanderthal" by Svanter Parbo, focusing on the entire process of drawing the genome of Neanderthal from scratch.
"The Neanderthal" is a "autobiography" belonging to scientific researchers. It uses storytelling to tell stories and narrate Svanter Parbo's more than 30 years of research experience. The logic is clear, easy to understand without losing the humor and witty nature. Some originally very professional concepts and details have become easy to understand and interesting in his writing.
Svanter Parbo reveals "Why do people be humans"
Although modern humans are the only humans that have survived to this day, archaeological research shows that in ancient times, there were a large number of other types of humans on the earth.
In 1997, the Parbo team obtained the mitochondrial DNA sequence of the first ancient human, Neanderthal. In 2005, he launched the Neanderthal genome sequencing project. In 2010, he published the first Neanderthal genome sketch, which first directly compared the Neanderthal genome with the genome of today's humans.
This study lets us know that up to 2% of the genomes of modern humans outside Africa come from Neanderthals, which proves that Neanderthals have mixed races with modern humans. It is precisely because of the ancient human genomes such as the Neanderthal genome that we can begin to explore why we become humans and what makes us humans.
Why is this research so important?
paleoanthropologist and academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences Wu Xinzhi said that the Eve hypothesis emerged in 1987 and soon became the mainstream view on the origin of modern people. One of the key points of its contradiction with the evolution hypothesis of multiple regions is that it advocates that the Neanderans ( Neanderans ) and the ancient humans at the same time in Europe and Asia were completely replaced by modern people from Africa and made no contribution to the origin of modern people. Africa is the only place of origin of modern people. What is the truth of history? The academic debate has been stalemate and has not been resolved for many years.
Pabbo and his scientific research team finally found out in 2010 that modern people and Nepals did have hybridization, proving that not only Africa, but also ancient humans in Europe and Asia have also contributed to the origin of modern people, resulting in the Eve hypothesis that modern people only originated from Africa and did not recognize that European and Asian ancient humans had made contributions from this stage of history since then.
"I first knew that Neanderthals attracted me through a TV program, and the delicateness of this TV program attracted me indefinitely. When it talks about prehistoric civilization , it kept reminding us that humans are difficult to survive, including the luck of dominating the planet today." Writer and scholar Ma Weidu recommended that we humans are at the node of the intelligence and information revolution today, and our lives will undergo tremendous changes. This revolution will not only influence the direction of human civilization, but more importantly, it will allow us to deeply understand ourselves. "The book "The Neanderthals" is undoubtedly an excellent example."
Svanter Parbo: Describe what he remembers
In the view of Vice President of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Lai Xulong, Svanter Parbo is a strong and straightforward scientist. He is not only a pioneer in the research of ancient DNA, but also a banner in this field.
Svanter Parbo tells readers that scientific research is complex and nonlinear.
As a scientific researcher, he is rigorous and cautious. For example, he will explain in the preface of the book: "I describe things I remember, but I am afraid that some trivial details have been confused. In addition, I describe things from my own subjective perspective and judge specific events based on my point of view, but I know that this view is not the only way to look at things.”
Yangzi Evening News/Zi Niu News reporter Sun Qingyun
proofreading Faye Wong
