Today’s interesting fact has to do with moths.

Moths are closely related to butterflies and are in the same order, Lepidoptera.

There are thought to be between 150,000 and 250,000 species of moths in the world, perhaps 10 times as many butterfly species.

Most are nocturnal but some work at twilight or during the day.

Some moths can be easily identified when in caterpillar form and others are easily identified as adults, but many are so similar that the only way to properly identify them is to scan their genetics, which is time consuming, and as most species moths have not had their genes analysed yet, pointless; or to dissect their genitals, which involves killing the moth.

Most moth species have genitals that are completely different, with male and female parts fitting together in one specific way, thus preventing breeding with incompatible species.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Trofim Lysenko, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the theory of the heritability of acquired characteristics.

Lysenko was a follower of Lamarck, a French Biologist who came up with Lamarckism, or the idea that an organism can pass on traits that it develops during its life, to its descendants. These traits were thought to be passed on at the time of conception.

Lamarckism fell out of favour in the 1920’s when evidence that seemed to support the theory, was shown to have been tampered with.

Lysenko claimed to have developed a better agricultural system through Lamarckism, which the leaders of the Soviet Union felt better supported the ideology of Communism. Lysenko was placed in charge of agriculture and denounced biologists that suggested other systems might work better than Lysenkoism, particularly geneticists, many of whom were executed or sent to labour camps.

Genetics was eventually declared a pseudoscience and effectively outlawed, and this was rescinded only in the mid 1960s.

Today's interesting fact, again has to do with our ancestors.

The sequencing of DNA from a thousand humans from around the world, has thrown out some interesting results. For the most part, we have a very limited genetic diversity, with a few exceptions.

The additional sequencing of DNA from a Neanderthals bones has thrown light on some of these differences.

If you are descended from Europeans, you are likely been 1% and 8% of genes that seem to have come from one or more Neanderthal ancestors, depending on the articles you read. The genes identified do not match with genes found in the general populations of Africa or China.

This research has also identified that the Chinese also have a set of genes that seems to have come from another unidentified ancestor.

I find this fascinating, as this may partially support the idea of a multi-regional origin of modern humans, where ancestors of the modern human left Africa, and then mated with modern humans after they left Africa about 60,000 years ago.

The Recent Out-of-Africa model seems to be supported by more scientists at the moment suggests that modern man didn't leave Africa before that, or if they had, they had died out. The multi-region theory suggests that there was a merging of several different subspecies of humans creating our modern selves. One recent dig has placed modern humans in China 100,000 years ago has placed more emphasis on this possibility.

There are those of course, who will bridle at the prospect of having Neanderthal genes. The Neanderthal has been portrayed as a brutish lout, that was so hideous that no modern man or woman would want to have anything to do with them. They were thought to be unable to speak, to have no culture, unimaginative, no religion, forced to use substandard tools, and eventually out competed by modern man.

The mixing of our genes along with recent archaeological finds, possibly tells a completely different story.

For over 130,000 years Neanderthal lived in Europe and parts of east Asia. As species go, this is successful run. The latest finds, suggest that they looked after their infirm, may have had religion (often burying their dead with tools, flowers and food for the afterlife), and were far more innovative than they have been credited by popular culture, even using grindstones to create flour from roots for the making of bread.

When the Neanderthal was found in the 17th Century, it was decided that they had to be sub-human, brutish and images created of them showed this bias. Recently, using techniques used by the police on finding dead individuals, by using their skulls and recreating the looks of those individuals by skilled artists, Neanderthal images were recreated. When these images were placed in modern clothing, even scientists who were primed with the information that one or more images in a picture would be a Neanderthal, were unable to determine with any accuracy, the modern humans verses the Neanderthals.

This just proves are not as different as many suspected.