the mellow tigger's musings

I've mentioned before my Neanderthal ancestry (and my curiously hairy ears), thanks to 23andMe genetic testing. Since that time, 23andMe has updated their findings, reporting me at <2% Neanderthal, but still my 268 variants they found (out of 7,462 tested) rates me at higher than 86% of their other customers.

Although I've mentioned the SPARK genetic database once before, apparently I've entirely neglected to mention that I've contributed to their database. After learning about their project during a local Minneapolis autism conference, I contributed saliva dna to their database back in 2016 April, as an adult with ASD. My non-ASD brother helpfully contributed too soon afterward. I didn't get the notice that "We have completed the genetic analysis of your saliva sample" until 2021 July.

I've written before that I suspect "autism represents a different (specifically, an older) form of human intellect." Now, there's some small evidence to add to that suspicion.

"It has been estimated that Eurasian-derived populations have approximately 2% Neanderthal DNA, which was acquired during introgression events occurring shortly after AMH migrated out of Africa [2, 3]. These hybridization events occurred somewhere between 47–65 thousand years ago (kya) [4]. A subset of Europeans later immigrated back into Africa approximately 20 kya, bringing some of this Neanderthal ancestry with them, such that all modern Africans have a small but measurable amount of Neanderthal DNA from the event [5].

Enrichment of Neanderthal DNA is also associated with enhanced neural connectivity within visual processing systems, particularly between the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the occipital cortex and fusiform gyrus, and decreased connectivity within the default mode (social) network [14, 16]. Importantly, many of these same connectivity patterns are recapitulated in autism, which is a major impetus for the current work.

In light of this evidence, in the current study we addressed whether Neanderthal DNA is enriched in autistic people and their siblings compared to ethnically-matched controls. We accessed whole exome sequencing (WES) for autistic probands and unaffected siblings from the Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research (SPARK) Database [21] for comparison against individuals in the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) and 1000 Genomes (1000G) databases [22, 23]. Significant enrichment in the autism group was especially driven by rare Neanderthal-derived variants, but also some common variants, which suggests weak but ongoing purifying selection towards removal of some of these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the human genome.

- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7, "Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings"

I'm glad to see that SPARK's genetic collection continues to produce interesting associations. I look forward to future links with early Harappa civilization, potentially an example of what an autism-dominant culture could be like.

Here's a good example of where my curiosity takes me.

1. It started with a pun on Mastodon, "Murder, She Roti".
2. What is roti? Oh, it's an unleavened bread.
3. What does that leave out? Various leavening agents.
4. Wait, there's a salt-leavened bread? No, that's a bad name, because there's no salt. It used to be stored in hot salt.
5. Wait, there's a bread that rises because of hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide? Yes, that bacterium is Clostridium perfringens.
6. Wait, that bacterium can cause a necrotizing disease, but people put it in their food?! Yes, but cooking destroys the bacteria to safe levels. Apparently. :/
7. If it's "safe", then how does it cause disease? It affects people who are protein deprived, which inhibits their trypsin production, which apparently deprives them of even more protein.
1. Wait, eating sweet potatoes does that too? Apparently so, unless you cook them well.
8. Why is trypsin important in the human body? Because trypsin begins the digestion process of protein molecules in the small intestine.
9. And... wait, what?! "Human trypsin has an optimal operating temperature of about 37 °C."?
1. That's the temperature for people living in the civilized world. For people in the USA, that's exactly 98.6 Fahrenheit.

So, I looked around and eventually found this publication.

Most hydrolyses have been reported at trypsin (EC 3.4.21.4) optimum conditions (pH 7.8 and 37 °C).

So... the obvious questions (and I haven't found any answers yet):

1. Is this molecule why humans evolved a body temperature of 37C/98.6F? If we deviate, then poor nutrition leaves us disadvantaged and subject to evolutionary culling?
2. What does this mean for our falling body temperature?
3. Other animals have different body temperatures (scroll upward to see the chart). Do they rely on some other process to kickstart their protein digestion?
1. I know humans have a weird intestinal digestion process, which is why we can't make use of the vitamin B12-producing bacteria that live in our gut. Other animals, however can use their own internally-hosted bacteria, so we eat their muscles, eggs, and livers to steal their bacteria-produced B12.
4. Are there some animals with the same temperature as humans, and do they have the same small intestine digestive process that we do?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I've mentioned the phrase "technological telepathy" many times over the years, both here and other platforms. It's strange, though, that I've never devoted a post just to that one concept alone. Are you ready to know whatever can be known yet maintain your own emotional equilibrium and reasoned behavior? It's a tough ask, I know.

You're almost there now.  In your hands, you probably have a cell phone with access to search engines to find much of recorded human history, knowledge, and theory, merely at a whim.  You can also find Twitter, where passing thoughts from humans across the planet skitter around like angry ants in a disturbed anthill.

Quoting myself to jump start this discussion:


Basically, it's the hardest thing that people demand from their most intimate relationships: somebody knowing what we truly think and feel yet not abandoning us in their disapproval.  I anticipate the social consequences that our technology inexorably carries us towards.  The only solutions I see are either 1) no technology, or 2) social/psychological change in the human animal, and soon.  The best legal salve I see is 3) the inviolate rule applied to every sapient brain that a mind must not ever be examined or altered without informed consent, so people can keep something private.  This prohibition might extend to include necessary trust-mechanisms for safe self-examination: doctors, psychiatrists, priests, and maybe even our private journals, smart phones, and personal AIs.

I consider current privacy laws to be atavistic reactions against this inevitability, and I think they are doomed ultimately to failure.  They hinder what must happen, which is the rapid (preferably immediate) review of historical data to in/validate any statement.  Self-absolution can be dangerous, because it allows us to indefinitely postpone confronting a potentially harmful habit.  What we have now is a boon to liars and charlatans.  Consider a better alternative.  Once you voluntarily release something from the confines of your own thoughts, then it ceases to be private or privileged.  It now belongs to all of humanity because it is in the minds/memories of other people, which you are forbidden from controlling.  And they can access your observable behavior (speech, writing, interactions), already fully indexed and footnoted with objective evidence for either the corroboration or the dispute of your perspective.  "Documented anarchy", as some have written.  There are no secret discussions or activities, if the audience is larger than your own internal thoughts.

Any lie would be quickly revealed.  I think that the right to be forgotten (even to delete regretted Tweets) is dangerously close to legalized gaslighting, erasing external evidence to prevent the confirmation of someone else's memory of history that you want to avoid.  Self-forgiveness can be necessary for growth too, but it should be part of our history rather than a forbidden topic.  The only fair future gives us the right to access corporate and government memory too, their memos and video recordings and meeting notes where they discuss how to use our personal data.  "Souveillance", as some have written. The unethical situation we have today is the asymmetric exercise of power to review.  They have it; we don't.

Could you know every other person's complete history (dna, childhood, schooling, psych evaluations, sex history, job history), just with the asking, yet restrain your curiosity for the sake of equilibrium?  Could you wisely and constructively use your freedom to ignore?  That future is beginning to materialize now.  How will you/we adapt to the knowledge of... well, everything?  What "filters" do you employ for your own benefit?  For instance, Dreamwidth includes "Age Restriction", but are there others that you would find useful?  Is there a social protocol for brutal honesty?