See what happens when you have sex with a Neanderthal?!
The Neanderthals gave our ancestors their genetic material, and possibly, a sexually transmitted disease!
Spanish, French, and Brazilian scientists studied 118 sequences of the human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 strain in order to create a genetic timeline of the virus. It appears to show that the disease was transmitted from the Neanderthals or the Denisovans, another extinct human ancestor, to humans.
The strain is extremely rare among Sub-Saharan Africans. This means that humans who left Africa more than 100,000 years ago may have contracted the disease elsewhere in the world.
The scientists believe that the human HPV16 strain, which infects 4 percent of Americans, and can lead to cervical cancer, is about 500,00 years old and may have originated in the Neanderthals or the Denisovans!
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