Over time, DNA breaks down from long sequences into many shorter fragments. “It was considered to be impossible to recover DNA from 40,000-year-old bones,” explained Nils-Göran Larsson, chair of the Nobel committee, during the press conference to announce the prize. But analyzing genetic samples from the vanished species was challenging. To find that humans and Neanderthals intermixed, it was first necessary to understand the Neanderthal genome. “Until quite recently - maybe 1,400 generations ago - there were other forms of humans around, and they mixed with our ancestors and have contributed to us today,” Pääbo, who directs the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said in a telephone interview with a Nobel staffer. By revealing genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, his discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human." In a press release, the Nobel committee wrote that "Pääbo’s seminal research gave rise to an entirely new scientific discipline, paleogenomics. Svante Pääbo established (in 1999) and leads the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
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