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Shadows of Early Human Migrations
Shadows of Early Human Migrations
H uman o rIGIn s
C a r l o s D . B u s ta m a n t e & B r e n n a m . H e n n
T
he new discipline of palaeogenetics is Denisovans
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NEWS & VIEWS RESEaRch
shadows in Plato’s proverbial cave, give us the region, every so often we should find oddly DNA will help us to better understand our own
broad outlines of ancient human migrations. divergent regions of the genome in some creation myths, and illuminate the details of
And what an interesting story they tell! It Melanesian individuals. The same idea has the molecular shadows in the cave. ■
seems that the Denisovan was most similar been proposed to test Neanderthal admixture
genetically to Neanderthals, but not so similar models (namely, looking for regions of the Carlos D. Bustamante and Brenna M. Henn
as to have been sampled from the same popula- human genome in which the highly divergent are in the Department of Genetics, Stanford
tion. The Reich–Pääbo team now demonstrates fragments of DNA sequence are non-African University School of Medicine, Stanford,
that Denisovans and Neanderthals are sister and potentially inherited from an ancient California 94305, USA.
taxa, clustering, on average, slightly more often population). e-mail: cdbustam@stanford.edu
than either does with modern human samples. As this work1 illustrates, studies of human
1. Reich, D. et al. Nature 468, 1053–1060 (2010).
Compared with modern humans, the Denis- genomic variation need to expand beyond 2. Cann, R., Stoneking, M. & Wilson, A. Nature 325,
ovan sample clusters slightly more often (about the realm of medical interest. The study of 31–36 (1987).
1–3% of time) with the present-day European diverse human genomes (both ancient and 3. Ramachandran, S. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
102, 15942–15947 (2005).
or east Asian genomes as compared with the present-day) is the most powerful tool avail- 4. Underhill, P. et al. Ann. Hum. Genet. 65, 43–62 (2001).
African genomes from the Yoruba, Mbuti and able for understanding our common human 5. Klein, R. The Human Career 3rd edn (Univ. Chicago
San. This is consistent with reported gene flow origins and history. The success of this Press, 2009).
from a Neanderthal population into the ances- research depends, of course, on proper com- 6. Green, R. E. et al. Science 328, 710–722 (2010).
7. Wolpoff, M., Hawks, J. & Caspari, R. Am. J. Phys.
tors of modern-day Eurasians6, if Denisovans munity and individual engagement of diverse Anthropol. 112, 129–136 (2000).
and Neanderthals are close sister taxa. peoples (including those from isolated human 8. Krause, J. et al. Nature 464, 894–897 (2010).
What is particularly fascinating, how- populations), who may possess the genomic 9. O’Connell, J. & Allen, J. J. Archaeol. Sci. 31, 835–853
(2004).
ever, is that the Denisovan sample seems history of ancient human migrations across 10. Summerhayes, G. et al. Science 330, 78–81 (2010).
to share an extra genetic affinity (beyond the globe. Together with the palaeoanthropo- 11. Cavalli-Sforza, L. & Feldman, M. Nature Genet. 33,
that for European and Asian genomes) with logical record, analyses of ancient and modern 266–275 (2003).
present-day island Melanesians. This is rather
unexpected, as the earliest occupation of Papua
New Guinea, an island in Oceania, by mod- Qua n tu m teCH noloGY
ern humans occurred only about 45,000 years
ago 9,10, and suggests quite a complicated
picture for the ancestry of the Denisovan finger
fragment.
Electrons spin
in the field
Studying ancient molecular diversity is not
without its pitfalls — the molecular shadows
we perceive may well have a more complex
underpinning. In their Supplementary Infor-
mation, Reich, Pääbo and co-workers1 go into Nanowires are candidates for enabling the exchange of quantum information
exquisite detail to discount many potential between light and matter. The rapid control of a single electron spin by solely
sources of bias in their data, including con- electrical means brings this possibility closer. See Letter p.1084
tamination, handling of the ancient material
and differences in depth-of-coverage among
genomes. D av I D J . r e I l lY of a single electron, the authors tailor the pre-
T
Many of these problems can indeed be dis- cise timing of electric-field pulses to extend the
counted, but some technical hurdles remain. he quest to develop ways to store and spin coherence time (during which the infor-
Sequencing technology and DNA preservation manipulate quantum information in mation encoded in the quantum state of the
may affect the interpretation of the clustering condensed-matter systems is establish- spin is preserved).
statistic for ancient genomes — for example, ing a tool kit for controlling the nanoworld — Controlling electron and nuclear spins
the finding that greater numbers of derived one that promises far-reaching technological is central to magnetic resonance technolo-
alleles (gene variants) are shared between innovation. One example is the idea of encod- gies such as magnetic resonance imaging.
Eurasians and Neanderthals than between ing data, both classical1 and quantum2, in the These technologies use radio- or microwave-
Eurasians and Denisovans could be due to dif- spin orientation of a single electron (its intrin- frequency magnetic fields to manipulate
ferences in sequencing technology. Nonethe- sic magnetic moment). During the past five some 1023 spins in macroscopic volumes.
less, it seems that comparison of ancient and years, this vision has largely been realized3–7, On the nanometre scale, the application of
modern genomes processed at the same time and researchers are now turning to other spatially selective, oscillating magnetic fields
provides a consistent picture of extra allele- goals, such as high-speed control of the spin is a formidable challenge, which makes
sharing between Denisovans and present-day orientation and the suppression of ‘decoher- controlling single spins difficult. Although
Melanesians, as well as between Denisovans ence’ processes that lead to a loss of quantum proof-of-principle experiments have shown
and Neanderthals. information. Innovative methods in quantum that nanometre-scale magnetic control is pos-
Perhaps the most powerful use of ancient control8,9 and new material systems are lead- sible11, the time it takes to rotate the orientation
DNA sequencing technology is in the realm ing the way in tackling this next generation of of the electron spin magnetically is long and
of hypothesis generation. For example, from challenges. does not allow for many rotations within a spin
the Denisovan remains, one can make explicit On page 1084 of this issue, Kouwenhoven coherence time. This limitation inhibits the use
predictions about the patterns of genetic vari- and co-workers10 report an experiment that of this technique for quantum information
ation in modern humans who are yet to have exploits the unique material properties of processing.
their DNA sequenced. Specifically, if there is an indium arsenide (InAs) semiconductor Kouwenhoven and colleagues’ experiment10
5–7% extra allele-sharing in the genomes of nanowire to rapidly control the quantum state addresses this shortcoming by moving from
Melanesians with an archaic Homo population, of a single electron spin using only electric magnetic to all-electric fields to achieve rapid
by sequencing modern individuals from the fields. Beyond just flipping the spin orientation control over the spin. Although an interaction
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