Rare Human Syndrome May Explain Why Dogs are So Friendly

[C C]

https://www.insidescience.org/news/rare-...o-friendly

EXCERPT: Williams syndrome, also known as Williams-Beuren syndrome, occurs when people are missing of a chunk of DNA containing about 27 genes. The syndrome affects about one in 10,000 people, and it is associated with a suite of mental and physical traits, including bubbly, extroverted personalities, a broad forehead, full cheeks, heart defects, intellectual disability and an affinity for music.

The first hint of a link between dogs and Williams syndrome came in 2010, when evolutionary biologist Bridgett vonHoldt and her colleagues examined DNA from 225 wolves and 912 dogs from 85 breeds. They were looking for parts of the genome that have been shaped by selection since dogs diverged from wolves.

One gene that popped out was WBSCR17, suggesting that it or other genes near it were important in dog evolution. This region of the genome is similar in dogs and humans, and the human version of WBSCR17 is located near the sequence that is deleted in people with Williams syndrome....

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[Zinjanthropos]

Geez, you would think The 27 missing gene mutation would be beneficial to the human race as far as amicability goes. But I guess it won't become dominant because intelligence is affected. So being unfriendly and smart is a better survival trait I guess. Friendly and outgoing vs mean and introverted, natural selection still prefers the latter.

[C C]

Geez, you would think The 27 missing gene mutation would be beneficial to the human race as far as amicability goes. But I guess it won't become dominant because intelligence is affected. So being unfriendly and smart is a better survival trait I guess. Friendly and outgoing vs mean and introverted, natural selection still prefers the latter.

Raises the question of the psycho-sociological disposition of extinct branches of the human genus.

Non-African humans may carry harmful Neanderthal genes that lower fitness
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/...r-fitness/

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[Zinjanthropos]

Those Neanderthals sound like a bunch of happy-go-lucky scamps. Can that be worked into a theory for their demise?

[C C]

Those Neanderthals sound like a bunch of happy-go-lucky scamps. Can that be worked into a theory for their demise?

Not much consensus speculation about what particular disposition they had, other than that they were probably as intelligent as the modern type humans they co-existed with. If the latter migrants were so much more vastly numerous and one or both subspecies desired the other in mating, then Neanderthals probably were just absorbed over time. Just as any legendary Polynesian, African, or European ocean voyagers of pre-Viking eras that made it to the New World would have soon been reverse assimilated into the indigenes. Lost in terms of visible appearances, if not wholly genetically from record.

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