Exploring Ghost DNA in Human Ancestry

Mm. Yes, talk about the ghost DNA.

Okay.

Yeah

So, so for people that, you know, who are like, yeah, wondering if it's a Casper

situation,

um, ghost DNA, uh, when ... Ghost DNA basically

means that you see some DNA in

somebody, and you're like, "Hold on a second.

We can't attribute that.

We can't-

Mm

... clearly say that comes from either our

species or a species that we already

have in the data set," like-

Mm

... basically Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Yeah.

And you're like, "This is someone else."

Yeah.

Who is this? We don't know. They're a ghost species.

And some people have put forward this fascinating model, this

fascinating proposal,

that 20% of our DNA comes from a

ghost lineage.

What? 20?

Percent.

Wow, 'cause I know with Neanderthal we're

talking about less than five, right?

Yeah.

Like three, two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I mean, I'll be honest-

What

... this paper is so explosive right now

that a lot of us don't know what to do

with it, and it's worth saying that it's, it's, you know, it's still at the early

phases.

Right.

Um, but it's coming from some really big

names.

And this would be an unknown species?

Yes.

Wow.

And the dates are really interesting, and, and what they're attributing to

that DNA. So

basically what you're talking ...

W- and so okay, it's fair to say we're slightly hybrid,

right?

Right.

We're slightly hybrid.

Yeah.

A little bit of Neanderthal, a little bit-

Some of us more than others

... yeah, exactly. Exactly. 100%, right? A little bit here, a little bit there.

But what they're saying is we are hybrid hybrid.

Wow.

So what they're arguing is 1.5 million years ago you had

population A,

population B.

Right.

Population A is where we come from, is where the Neanderthals

come from as well. Uh, population B is just ancient,

right? It's, it's-

Extinct now?

Absolutely.

Mm.

Except

that then somehow they reconnected

300,000 years ago when-

That number rings a bell.

Uh-huh. Do you see why this is exciting?

Do, do you wanna tell them or ...

You tell ...

The origin of Homo sapiens.

Yes.

What? We are hybrid h- man

Do you understand why we're like, we don't know what to do with ourselves?

What?

And-

Oh my God, that's explosive

... they are, yeah, and they're arguing that their models

are showing a

20% infusion from population B, so this

ancient human species who ... When you said are they extinct, I

mean, technically, but also technically-

Yeah. But we're mules.

Right. Well-

They can breed

... they're kind of really functional, really, like, quite good at, yeah,

procreating mules.

Yeah.

And what they're actually, um, showing is the, uh, the

infusion of this, this 20%, that they think it had,

uh, neurogenesis, uh, the genes, a lot of them were related to

neurogenesis, so you're talking about brain stuff.

Yeah. So define neurogenesis.

So basically neural, genes that are related to neural

activity.

Ah.

Um, and so w- effectively what we're talking about

is that infusion of DNA

around 300,000 years ago, um, it was related

to, it, it might have helped us with brain

function.

Wow. Wow. The awakening