Neanderthal Circadian Rhythm

AAAS: “Neaderthals were morning people.” ‘If you’re a morning person, as I am, you might have inherited that trait from a Neanderthal ancestor, researchers report this week in Genome Biology and Evolution.’ Smithsonian Magazine reportsthat since Neanderthals in Eurasia lived at higher latitudes they had to deal with more variation in seasonal daylight than their relatives in Africa, [and] this may have caused them to evolve a more flexible circadian rhythm — the internal “clock” that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. “Authors of the new study compared modern and ancient versions of both human- and Neanderthal-derived genes known to affect the circadian rhythm and found that people who had inherited Neanderthal genetic variants were more likely to be early risers.” A consideration is that ‘these findings not only shed new light on Neanderthal biology, the researchers told The New York Times, but could help inspire ways to help people cope with modern sleep disruptions, such as working night shifts or staying up reading on glowing smartphones.’ Perhaps this helped me survive the travails of medical training and practice throughout my career, including bucketloads of obstetrics.