Imagine my excitement
I got a message from 23andme with the subject “View your unread Neanderthal report”. Oooo! Big fan of the cavemen, me. The link took me to a page that said “You have more Neanderthal DNA than 94% of other customers.”
Well, maybe. They’ve actually refined my Neanderthal DNA *down* a little, to less than two percent. But what they’ve done is found a tentative relationship between Neanderthal DNA snippets and certain characteristics. I only have one such snippet: it’s associated with a worse sense of direction.
Guys, I have the worst sense of direction of anybody in the whole history of sense of direction. I am true to thee, my Neanderthal ancestor.
I do NOT have the variants for these things, but I really should: having difficulty discarding rarely-used possessions, generally not feeling angry when hungry (hangry), having a worse sense of smell, being more likely to cry while cutting onions and being more likely to have a fear of public speaking.
Maybe they’ll rejigger the results again sometime soon and find me more Neanderthal. They do that a lot.
Posted: January 4th, 2021 under family.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 4, 2021, 11:47 pm
Neanderthals cried when speaking in public?
No wonder they’re gone! They had no political representation.
I’ll bet they genetically couldn’t even cash those ginormous $600 checks the whole country is getting so they can watch You-Tube videos of what happens when they use those funds they allocated to teach the Pakistanis there are 57 genders (or is it 58 this year?)
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: January 5, 2021, 2:27 am
@durnedyankee — Heh! But I think it’s that Neanderthals cried when speaking to chopped onions in public. But it wasn’t much of a problem because they mostly couldn’t find the podium, much less the lectern.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 5, 2021, 10:17 am
@uncle al. Ah! Right. Gawrsh I loves science!
Cuz I have a hard time buying they can tell Neanderthals had a lousy sense of direction by looking at DNA. And I feel like they might be doing the printed equivalent of “click bait” with this ‘science’.
As the US Congress would say though;
Bless us oh Science
Amen, Awomen, Adamasgender, Aadvarks, etc.
Comment from BJM
Time: January 5, 2021, 5:02 pm
@Stoaty…has 23andme addressed the Denisovans?
@Uncle Al…with a poor sense of smell and a lousy sense of direction how’d they find the onions?
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: January 5, 2021, 5:54 pm
Stoaty—could you be deficient in Vit.B-12? My sense of smell (and taste) is greatly impacted by low B-12. Impaired sense of smell was a big tip-off for me in tracking down the problem. Sublingual B-12 works very well and is inexpensive, and some people just need more than diet alone can supply.
Comment from weasel again
Time: January 5, 2021, 6:57 pm
Hm. No. Never tried a B supplement. Always had a lousy sense of smell.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 5, 2021, 8:05 pm
A rare funny came from Mrs D today (she has a more refined sense of humor which makes me wonder how I managed to convince her to marry me, perhaps that WAS part of her joke….)
when she heard about the “Amen, Awomen” prayer closing in Congress, she dryly observed –
“So, once again, women come second to men.”
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