NYT reports that the Neanderthal genome has been reconstructed, raising the fascinating possibility that we might decide to resurrect the species. Which is somewhat poetic since homo sapiens is likely the species that exterminated Neanderthals in the first place, back when we did such things with big clubs and resource monopolization.

Interestingly, in my opinion the NYT whiffs on the question of whether humans and Neanderthals interbred: “An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings, which were announced Thursday in Leipzig, Germany, is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans. This confounds the speculation that modern humans could have interbred with Neanderthals, thus benefiting from the genes that adapted the Neanderthals to the cold climate that prevailed in Europe in last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago.”

Well, not really. It means that there are no known surviving Neanderthal genes in human DNA, but early human tribes had a knack for intraspecies genocidal behavior, so it seems to me that a hybrid group could easily have been wiped out along the way by their neighbors or a harsh environment. And not to nitpick, but we’re still living in the “last ice age”, at least until we manage to melt both Poles; you probably meant to say the last “glaciation period,” Times. If you don’t get this right, no wonder few others do.