Finding Our Inner Neanderthal: Evolutionary Geneticist Svante Pääbo’s DNA Quest A special program complementing the National Museum of Natural History exhibition Genome: Unlocking Life's Code

Evening Lecture

Tuesday, March 25 

7:00 - 8:30 pm

Geneticist Svante Paabo will be speaking at the Smithsonian Tuesday, 25 March 2014 on Neandertal DNA.

In 2010, Svante Pääbo shook the scientific world with the results from a groundbreaking genetic study. Pääbo, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, headed a team whose 5-year investigation concluded that Neanderthals, who disappeared 30,000 years ago, mated with early members of our own species. The legacy of those Neanderthals survives in the DNA of many people today: “Neanderthals are not totally extinct,” says the scientist. “In some of us they live on, a little bit.”

Through extraction of ancient DNA from a variety of sources and geographic locations, Pääbo’s team studied genetic data across time and continents. Pääbo discusses the study’s methods and findings, and later is joined by Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program of the Museum of Natural History, for a conversation about how paleogenetics can deepen our understanding of the long history of our species.

More Information: http://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?utm_source=SI-Trumba-Calendar&utm_medium=SIWeb&utm_campaign=2012FY-Trumba-calend&tmssource=190358&performanceNumber=227687