“Just as you do an archeological excavation to find out about the past, we sort of make excavations in the human genome,” he said at a news conference held by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.Underground microbes may have swarmed ancient Mars New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers Drive for climate compensation grows after Pakistan's floods Mexican church pre-Hispanic paintings suggest negotiation This transfer of genes between hominin species affects how the immune system of modern humans reacts to infections, such as the coronavirus.“By mixing with them after migrating out of Africa, Homo sapiens picked up sequences that improved their chances to survive in their new environments,” Wedell said.Paabo, 67, performed his prizewinning studies at the University of Munich and at the Max Planck Institute.David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, said he was thrilled, fearing the field of ancient DNA might “fall between the cracks.” By recognizing that DNA can be preserved for tens of thousands of years — and developing ways to extract it — Paabo and his team created a completely new way to answer questions about our past, said Reich, who is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which also supports The Associated Press’ Health and Science Department."