Learn how researchers found ancient Neanderthal DNA in human chromosomes. Plus, linguist James Kirby will answer a question about how musicians write songs in tonal languages. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how genetecists found Neanderthal DNA in the dark centers of human chromosomes: https://curiosity.im/2xF98kI Want to support our show?Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019 Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn how researchers found ancient Neanderthal DNA in human chromosomes. Plus, linguist James Kirby will answer a question about how musicians write songs in tonal languages.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how genetecists found Neanderthal DNA in the dark centers of human chromosomes: https://curiosity.im/2xF98kI
Want to support our show? Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/songs-in-tonal-languages-w-james-kirby-and-neanderthal-dna-in-human-chromosomes
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how researchers found ancient Neanderthal DNA in human chromosomes. Plus, today’s guest James Kirby will answer a question about how musicians write songs in tonal languages.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Geneticists Searched the Dark Centers of Human Chromosomes and Found Neanderthal DNA — https://curiosity.im/2xF98kI (Ashley)
Researchers have found Neanderthal DNA lurking in a dark corner of the chromosomes of modern humans. And this could help scientists figure out what, exactly, we pass down through our genes. Let me back up and talk about chromosomes for a second. Chromosomes are structures that exist in the nucleus of every cell in your body. Most of the time, they hang out in the nucleus as a tangled mess of DNA, but when the cell is ready to divide, that’s when they shape up to look like those X-shaped things you see in textbooks. When a cell is ready to divide, those long strands of DNA coil into 46 separate chromosomes. They’re still not X shapes; they're more like I shapes. Those 46 chromosomes are technically 23 pairs of chromosomes, since you've got one version from each of your parents, but these pairs aren't attached to each other. Each of your 46 chromosomes makes a copy of itself when your cells divide, and those copies are known as a chromatid. The chromosomes hang onto the chromatid by attaching in the middle, and that’s what makes the shape of an X. The intersection of the two chromosomes in the middle of the X is called the centromere. And that’s what this study focused on.
Almost every gene you've ever heard about was found in the outer portion of the chromosome — basically, the arms of the X. In this new study published in eLife, geneticists examined that intersection of the X, the centromere. The DNA in that region is full of repeating sequences that make it really hard to properly map. And it’s a big deal to identify genes in the centromere because while the ARMS of the X can split and crossover to shuffle a parent’s genes into their egg or sperm cells, the CENTER of the X doesn’t, so it could contain genes that have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. In this region, the researchers figured they might find large groups of genes called haplotypes that have been inherited from generation to generation. And they did! In one chromosome, they found Neanderthal DNA that had been around for 700-thousand years. The big implication here is that if scientists can tell the difference between chromosomes based on their centromeres, they can figure out whether which centromere haplotype a person inherits from an egg or sperm cell makes a difference in the traits they develop. It's possible that some haplotypes are inherited more easily or are more prone to errors than others. This is the first step in finding out.
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Listener Question - James Kirby answer on writing music in tonal languages (Both)
CODY: We’ve got a listener question about music in tonal languages! This question comes from Ashley… Hammer? Hah-mer? How do you say this? [ad lib]
ASHLEY: My question is about how you can understand music in a tonal language. And to get some help with the answer, we got in touch with James Kirby, Reader in Phoenetics at the University of Edinburgh. Here he is with a quick refresher on what a tonal language even is.
[CLIP 0:29]
ASHLEY: That brings us back to my question: how could you possibly sing or understand lyrics in these languages? James told us that one major way is context, basically knowing what word does or doesn’t make sense in a phrase. And another way is phoenetic effect, meaning that a singer can kind of “sneak in” the tone of a word moving up or down, as an accent or melisma to what they’re singing. But here’s the other major piece of the songwriting puzzle.
[CLIP 4:54]
CODY: He also stressed that of course, these aren’t hard-and-fast rules, and that a lot of musicians play around with our expectations by using different tones or rhythms than what we might expect — something you can hear in some music from southeast Asia, and here in the U.S. in a lot of rap music. Again, that was James Kirby, Reader in Phoenetics at the University of Edinburgh. And thanks for your question, Ashley! [ad lib]
ASHLEY: Before we recap what we learned today, we want to thank we want to give a special shout-out to Muhammad Shifaz and Dr. Mary Yancy, who are executive producers for today’s episode. We really appreciate your generous support! Now, let’s review what we learned.
CODY: We learned that DNA can hang out for a LONG time if it’s in the right place on your chromosomes.
ASHLEY: And that composing songs in tonal languages isn’t that different from composing songs in non-tonal languages.
[ad lib]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!