Genetic variants from Neanderthals associated with increased (and decreased!?) risk of severe covid

 

Headlines like this one in the Daily Mail last week seem to contractive headlines from last summer... 

Both studies examined whether genetic variants shared with Neanderthals are associated with an increased risk of covid infection and severity.  And it seems some loci are... with others are associated with a decreased risk. These contradictory results aren't really that surprising as many different genetic factors (and environmental factors) are likely to influence risk.

Note: the study gaining press this month has not yet been published as a peer-reviewed article, but the early study was published in Nature last year.

-posted by Brenda Bradley

Dire Wolves were real -- and their genome has been sequenced!

 

An article in the New York Times last week summarizes results from the first genomic sequencing of dire wolves, recently published in Nature.

The most interesting findings are: (1) they are not as previously assumed a sister species of wolves, but instead represent a deep - now extinct - canid lineage; and (2) unlike other candids, they didn't seem to interbreed with other taxa... which might have contributed to their extinction?

No dragon genomes yet.