The absence of amystems suggests that a sample is feminine, but it is not final. This is both because it is impossible to exclude a problem with identifying the protein in so old samples, and partly because some rare men (including at least one Neanderthal) wear deletions that eliminate the gene completely.
The other that is the key here is that some of the 425 amino acid locations differ between hominin species, and even individual members of Parantropus. That is why they may be able to serve as a diagnosis of relationships between and within species and help some of the confusion about how many species of Parantropus There were and their relationship with other people. Although it is difficult to say too much with only four samples, the researchers found suggestive evidence.
For example, they tested whether you could see the type of amino acid variation among these samples if they all belonged to the same kind. This was done by randomly choosing four human taken and investigating whether they had a similar level of variation. They concluded that it was “plausible” that you would see this level of variation in all four people who were randomly chosen, but the population of modern people is probably greater than that of ParantropusSo the test was not final.
Among the 425 different amino acids were 16 that had species -specific variations between people. Somewhat surprising, Paranthropus Robustus is the most closely related kind of our own gender, HomoBased on a tree made up of these variations. Again, they conclude that there is simply not enough data available to be confident in this conclusion.
But that should really be a “not yet enough data.” We heard about this article from the regular Ars reader Enrico Cappellini, who happens to be the senior author and faculty at the Globe Institute of the University of Copenhagen. And a quick glance at its faculty profile indicates that the development of the techniques used here is his most important research focus, so hopefully we can expand the data available over extinct hominin species over time. The challenge, as noted in the newspaper, is that the technology destroys a small part of the monster, and these monsters are unique pieces of the collective history of all humanity.
Science, 2025. Doi: 10.1126/science.adt9539 (over dois).
