title: Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
author:  Svante Pbo 
description: As Pbo tells it, sequencing the genome of Neanderthal man seems to have been about equally fascinating and frustrating. Fortunately, fascination predominated, and ultimate success was reported in 2010 and closely followed by the sequencing of another progenitor of modern humans. The frustration that dogged the project arose from the difficulty of finding Neanderthal fossils with enough DNA left in them to reconstruct the genome, and the constant need to expel contamination by modern human DNA, which, since it highly resembles Neanderthal DNA, routinely corrupts sequencing the latter. The tale Pbo tells is largely one of technological improvement enabling the elimination of contamination and speeding up the sequencing process. Secondarily, its about creating scientific foundations and multinational scientific cooperation to pursue the promises of research into ancient DNA, including that of nonhuman species as well as hominins. Although he never mentions it, Pbo is the acknowledged founder of ancient DNA research. Instead, he sparingly recounts his personal odyssey from homosexuality to marriage and fatherhood, without relating it to his work, which may perplex some readers. --Ray Olson
zlib_text: In 1984, short DNA fragments were extracted and 
  sequenced from the dried muscle of a museum specimen 
  of the quagga, a species of zebra that became extinct at 
  the beginning of the twentieth century, marking the birth 
  of ancient DNA (aDNA) research1. Although the data 
  gathered were limited to 229 bp, this was the first time 
  that direct genetic information had travelled through 
  time, adding molecular evidence to the toolkit used by 
  researchers to observe evolution and understand how the 
  modern world came to be.
  More than three decades later, the time range amena-
  ble to DNA analysis extends to more than half a mil-
  lion years (560,000–780,000 years ago2), and many 
  extinct species have now had their genomes com-
  pletely sequenced, including woolly mammoths3 and 
  cave bears4, as have human populations from Vikings5 
  to Paleo-Inuit6 to Neanderthals7–10. With the addition 
  of aDNA data, our current atlas of genetic variation 
  is not limited to a snapshot of the diversity found in 
  p