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--></style><title>Svante Pääbo: "Human Origins - A
Comparative Approach" Nov</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#000000"><b>Svante Pääbo</b>, Director</font> of
the<font color="#000000"> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b>"A Comparative Approach to Human
Origins</b>"</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">TUESDAY, NOV. 7, 5:30 p.m., FPH Main
Lecture Hall</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Please ANNOUNCE and forward this to others
who might like to hear the lecture. Thank you.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">ABSTRACT: One approach to understanding
what makes humans unique as a species is to perform structural and
functional comparisons between the genomes of humans and our closest
evolutionary relatives the great apes. Recently, the draft sequence of
the chimpanzee genome has opened up new possibilities in this area. I
will describe work that compares the DNA sequences and activities of
human and chimpanzee genes and discuss evidence that suggests that
genes expressed in the brain may have been particularly important
during human evolution. I will also argue that a genome-wide analysis
of the Neanderthal genome would substantially enhance our ability to
identify genes that have been recent targets of positive selection
during human evolution.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">More information:</font><font
color="#FF9900">
http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/files/team_paabo.html</font></div>
<div>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4986668.stm</div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">BIOGRAPHICAL INFO.: Svante Pääbo is
Director of The Department of Evolutionary Genetics at The Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He is a biologist
specializing in evolutionary genetics. Recently, his research team
isolated the long segments of genetic material from a 45,000-year-old
Neanderthal fossil from Croatia. Their work should reveal how closely
related the Neanderthal species was to modern humans, Homo
sapiens.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">This is a Distinguished Lecture of the
Foundation for Psychocultural Research - Hampshire College Program in
Culture, Brain, and Development (CBD)</font><font color="#FF9900">
http://cbd.hampshire.edu</font></div>
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<div>Paula Harmon, Coordinator<br>
Foundation for Psychocultural Research-Hampshire College Program in
Culture, Brain, and Development (CBD)<br>
Adele Simmons Hall, Room 100<br>
Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002<br>
phone: 413-559-5501; fax: 413-559-5438<br>
email: cbd@hampshire.edu<br>
http://cbd.hampshire.edu</div>
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