Beth Shapiro

Wow.

That's cool, right?

That's crazy.

So two questions then.

Are they actually extinct?

If we can put together 93% of their genome by pulling together people who are alive today, that's just a fun philosophical question.

Second is, what the hell is going on in that other 7%, right?

And if we want to know what it is that makes us human, that's where we look, right?

That's where we ask.

What are the mutations that arose since we split from Neanderthals that if a baby got that part of the Neanderthal DNA, it didn't survive.

It couldn't make it as a human.

That is the bit that is important to define us.

We've actually been able to narrow that down.

There's less than 100 genes, we think, less than 100 mutations in genes now that have evolved since that split that most people that are alive today have.

And that is what makes us human.

It makes sense, though.

We want to have a conversation.

And if we want to talk about something, we have to call it something.

Right.

So we have species concepts that we designed that allow us to have a conversation and know what we're talking about.