Neanderthal Ancestry from the 23andMe Lab

The fact that he is six feet ten 
Might instill fear in other men 
But not in me, The Mighty Flea
You ask if I am mouse or man 
The mirror squeaked, away I ran... 
He'll murder me in time for his tea! 
Does it bother me at all?
My rival is Neanderthal, it makes me think -- Sting

As you saw yesterday, I am learning more and more about myself and my inherited genetic make-up from the DNA analyses run by the labs at 23andMe. Here is one that I'm sure you will be interested in:

I have 2.9% Neanderthal Ancestry!

Rob's Neanderthal Ancestry

So if you read my post from yesterday, you remember that I have 8.9% Nonspecific European ancestry. This Neanderthal amount of 2.9% definitely comes from that segment. My daughter, Chloe, will be sad to learn that there are no varieties of Sasquatch appearing anywhere in the human genome, so this is as close as she can get proving I have Sasquatch blood.

A little humor about cavemen from GEICO:

So easy even a caveman can do it...

A little more about Neanderthals:

Neanderthals were a group of humans who lived in Europe and Western Asia. They are the closest evolutionary relatives of modern humans, but they went extinct about 30,000 years ago. The first Neanderthals arrived in Europe as early as 600,000 to 350,000 years ago. Neanderthals — Homo neanderthalensis — and modern humans — Homo sapiens — lived along side each other for thousands of years. Genetic evidence suggest that they interbred and although Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 years ago, traces of their DNA — between 1 percent and 4 percent — are found in all modern humans outside of Africa. Apart from the curiosity of finding what percentage of a modern human's genome is Neanderthal, the information has great value for science. By comparing our DNA with Neanderthal DNA, scientists can detect the most recent evolutionary changes as we developed into fully modern humans.