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Picture Courtesy: https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/50000-year-old-neanderthal-bones-harbor-oldest-known-human-viruses

Context: The discovery of ancient viruses in Neanderthal bones provides fascinating insights into both human evolution and the history of infectious diseases.

Discovery of Ancient Viruses

• The study examined two male Neanderthal skeletons discovered in the Chagyrskaya cave in the Altai mountains of Russia. These Neanderthals lived approximately 50,000 years ago.
• Scientists extracted DNA sequences from the Neanderthal bones and identified sequences that appeared to originate from viruses.
• To confirm the viral origin, researchers compared the ancient viral DNA sequences to known modern viruses. They specifically looked for unique signatures in the viral DNA to distinguish ancient viruses from modern ones. Through this analysis, researchers identified traces of three common human viruses:
  • Adenovirus: Known to cause symptoms such as cold- and flu-like symptoms, sore throat, and pink eye.
  • Herpesvirus: Resembling the one causing cold sores in modern humans.
  • Papillomavirus: Can lead to genital warts and certain cancers.

Netherlands

• The Netherlands, also known as Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean.
• The Netherlands shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium, and shares a North Sea coastline to the north and west.
• The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland.
• The Netherlands has a low elevation and flat topography, with 26% situated below sea level and 21% of its population below sea level.
• The Netherlands ranks first in the European Union and second worldwide in the value of agricultural exports, behind only the United States.
• The Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848.
• Much of the country was originally formed by the estuaries of three large European rivers: the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, as well as their tributaries.
• The Groningen gas field, discovered in 1959, is one of the largest natural gas fields in the world and has generated enormous revenues for the country for decades.

Source:

LiveScience

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