English News in Levels

Ancient Genetic Switches Shared with Neanderthals May Hold the Secret to Human Language

Researchers at the University of Iowa have identified a tiny set of ancient genetic regulatory elements, called HAQERs, that appear to have an outsized influence on human language ability. These Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions make up less than 0.1 percent of the genome but drive roughly 200 times more impact on language than any other genomic region. The findings, published in Science Advances, reveal that these genetic switches were also present in Neanderthals, pushing the biological origins of language further back in evolutionary history than previously believed.