Computing the caveman

Reconstructing cavemen from bits of fossil DNA is still the stuff of science fiction. But thanks to highpowered computing wizardry, we now have the blueprints you'd need to do it. An international team of scientists published the first draft of the Neanderthal genome in the journal Science on 7 May. The study showed, somewhat surprisingly, that early humans and Neanderthals interbred and that 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in modern Asians and Europeans comes from Neanderthals.