“Hobbit” DNA Study Planned

News October 30, 2013

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(Rosino)

JAKARTA, INDONESIA—Herawati Sudoyo of the Eikjman Institute for Molecular Biology announced that she will work with Richard Edward Green of the University of California to look for genetic traces of Denisovans and Homo floresiensis in modern humans living on the Indonesian island of Flores. Herawati adds that genetic study of H. floresiensis could determine if the “Hobbits” are in fact a separate species of hominid. “We can determine it through a wider perspective using ‘genome-wide scanning.’ We can see it from the aspects of metabolism, nutrition, food, including genes related to their susceptibility to diseases,” she explained. 

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