The soul of an old machine Genomics is raising a mirror to humanity, producing some surprising reflections Jun 17th 2010 THE decade since the genome announcement has seen many remarkable results. Vying with Dr Venter's synthetic life for the title of the most extraordinary was the announcement on February 12th 2009 (by no mere coincidence Charles Darwin's 200th birthday) that a second species of human had had its genome sequenced. Svante Paabo, the inspiration for Michael Crichton's novel and film, "Jurassic Park", told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that his team at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig had a version of Neanderthal man's DNA to compare with that of modern humans. The actual comparison was not published until six weeks ago, on May 6th. It was, however, worth waiting for. It showed similarities between the species (in, for example, the FOXP2 gene that helps govern the ability to speak) as well as differences (in several genes connected with cognitive ability). These differences are obvious places to start looking for the essence of modern humanity—the things that distinguish Homo sapiens from other animals, including other types of human, and thus accounts for the extraordinary flourishing of a species that is now estimated to make use of 40% of the net primary productivity (the energy captured by photosynthesis and converted into plant matter) of the planet's land surface. Genomics can, however, do more than this. Comparing the genomes of people alive today allows places where natural selection has been active in the more recent past to be identified. Until now this has been done using gene chips, but the new power of whole-genome sequencing will enrich and complete the picture. Allied with an analysis of how Homo sapiens has spread out of Africa and around the world, this will give a fine-grained picture of human evolution—and possibly a controversial one if differences between geographical groups emerge in sensitive areas such as intelligence and behaviour. Such phenotypic areas are also being investigated in studies looking at variation within populations, for GWAS is being extended beyond the realm of disease to examine intelligence, personality type, religiosity and even the ability to make money
http://www.economist.com/node/16349410?story_id=16349410&fsrc=scn/tw/te/rss/pe
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