Radiolab - Neanderthal's Revenge

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

A few months ago, co-Host Latif Nasser, who was otherwise healthy, saw blood in his poop. It was the start of a medical journey that made him not only question what was going on in his body, but also dig into the secret genetic story of how we became human. Curled up in a hospital bathroom, Latif tries to sort out whether his ordeal is the result of a long-lost sibling knifing him in the gut or, on the contrary, a long-forgotten kindness shared between two human-ish travelers.  Special thanks to Azra Premiji, Avir Mitra, Suzanne Lehrer, David Reich, Sriram Sankararaman, Ainara Sistiaga, Carl Zimmer, Carly Mensch, Nihal Kaur, Charlotte Hsu and Bert Gambini at the University at Buffalo Media Relations, and Latif's GI Doctor Florence Damilola Odufalu and her entire team, as well as all the staff at LA County-USC Medical Center and Keck USC hospitals who looked after Latif during his hospitalization. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today.     Radiolab is on YouTube! Catch up with new episodes and hear classics from our archive. Plus, find other cool things we did in the past — like miniseries, music videos, short films and animations, behind-the-scenes features, Radiolab live shows, and more. Take a look, explore and subscribe!Editorial Note: This podcast was amended after initial release to change the way we refer to those afflicted by addiction. 

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Door listening to radio lab. Radio from WNYC. If you want to get grocer, I can always get grocer. Oh, I'm ready to get grocer. I'm ready to get grocer. Let's talk about this stuff.

Hey, I'm Lula Miller. And this is Lottophnozor. This is Radio Lab. And today, I've got kind of a personal story for you. But okay, so the baseline here is that I'm like, thankfully, I'm a healthy person. Like I have no preexisting conditions. I don't smoke, I'm a healthy person. Like, I have no pre-existing conditions, I don't smoke, I don't drink, nothing like that.

I am and have been for like the vast majority of my life, like very lucky that way. Yeah. And then about 10 months ago, I started noticing blood in my poop. Okay. Like, it wasn't painful or anything, didn't feel any different. It was just like a shocking red alarm, red alert.

This is blood. And was it just the ones? No, no, no, it was multiple. It was every day. Yeah. And I was like, this is weird. And it's just not going away. And so I was like, yeah, I should talk to somebody.

So I go to a doctor, eventually get referred to another doctor, they go, they put me under, I get a colonoscopy. And basically, as I was coming out of the sedation, she came to me, the doctor, and she was like, okay, so you have Crohn's disease. Wow, that day. He's like right away. She was like, this looks like textbook case.

Someone you know is suffering from Crohn's disease and the virus from the veer Crohn's disease. And so I knew enough that it's like, okay, this is an autoimmune disease. Of the gut, right? With moderate to severe Crohn's disease. Yeah, it's like the immune system is attacking the digestive system.

And the main symptom is usually pooping all the time. But I wasn't experiencing that. So my doctor, she basically gave me this low dose steroid, one pill a day, and she was like, okay, let's see how this goes. And pretty quick, it was not going well. Pup, pup, pup, pup. Ugh.

So like I was pooping like five times a day, 10 times a day. Oh. You know in like 80s movies of like kids at camp and then they give the camp counselor laxatives and then the camp counselor has to like run to the thing and yeah. That's what I was pooping like.

And is it, are you in pain at this point? It wasn't really painful so much. It was like it was frustrating and exhausting. Like, it just shut down my life. Anything I wanted to do, if I wanted to work, if I wanted to take care of my kids, like I just couldn't do it. And as you well know, I get like worked up

and really excited about a certain topic and I'll be like researching a thing and working on a thing. I'll be so excited about it. I wanna do nothing but live and eat and sleep and breathe that thing and dream that thing. Yeah, text about that thing and call people about that thing. Yeah.

Right, and I do this all the time, but especially when things in my life get hard. Like it's a coping mechanism for me. And at this moment in my life, in this particular hard time, the thing that I was obsessed with the random thing I got fixated on was Neanderthals. Why? Neanderthals.

Okay, so when I say the word Neanderthals, you're probably picturing in your head like a cave, person, strong, but dumb, and hunched over human ancestor, right? Yeah. Um, but it turns out in the last 10 to 15 years, we've realized that Neanderthals were actually super sophisticated. Way more intelligent and capable than we thought, even artistic. Huh, like they're, they were this bizzaro version of us that we knew and coexisted with for thousands of years.

So, to me, I see them as this long-lost sibling like that can tell us so much about ourselves and also about what is it even possible in the world? So I was like so excited about Neanderthals and I was just trying to read about them, trying to read about them, and then I kept having to go to the bathroom. And at that point, I was like spending most of the day on the toilet, so I was like, trying to read about them trying to read about them and then I kept having to go to the bathroom and at that point

I was like spending most of the day on the toilet so I was like while I'm here. I'm I'm doing this anyway So I like to and there was one point So I'm gonna be talking to you today about some of the topics that came up in my thesis I was I was on the toilet on the phone. I was watching this lecture from 2018. And this scientist from South Africa named Dr. Karen Warren, she's basically talking about our ancestral story. You may have learned it in like a biology or anthropology class. Basically what happens is, we're all evolving in Africa. What happens then is that... About 1.5 to 2 million years ago, homy rectus.

Homo erectus, this ancestor of ours. Some of them leave Africa, which leads to an evolutionary split. The ones who left for Europe and Asia, those ones become Neanderthals. While the ones that stayed in Africa, eventually become us, homo sapiens. Fast forward to million years.

Humans left Africa. The homo sapiens, some of us leave Africa. We reunite in Europe with our long lost neanderthal cousins. And ultimately, we kill some of them, outcompete some of them, and also... We have sex with them. So there was a big potty, and there was a lot of kissing cousins back in the day. Before we potentially helped drive them extinct, we were actively getting it on with them.

And as the video explained, this interspecies love making is actually how we got to the humans that most of us are today. Homo sapiens, which is a few Neanderthal genes in us. I feel like this is a moment to tell you, I got like on 23 and me. I'm like as high Neanderthal as like a human can get. I'm like a-

Really? Yeah. Huh. Okay, so I'm sitting on toilet watching this talk, talk ends, Q and A. In the Q and A, there's one thing she says. Question then becomes sort of totally offhand that completely catches me off guard in this lecture,

which is that she says that those Neanderthal genes still affect our lives and one example is there are a lot of autoimmune disease genes, a lot of immunity genes in general. We got several autoimmune diseases from Neanderthal genes. So I was like what? So then I just opened a new little browser window and I googled Crohn's disease Neanderthals and there were all of these articles saying, yes, we got Crohn's disease from having sex with Neanderthals. And I just burst out laughing. It just felt absurd.

Like, well, how could that possibly, like, how could two humanist creatures that had sex a hundred thousand years ago, like, I'm on the toilet now because of that. How does that make any sense, you know? Because of a clandestine interspecies love affair. Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, what are the odds, right? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so I'm reading about this, and as I'm reading all this, like my situation is getting worse and worse and worse. I was pooping like 15, 20, 25, even 30 times a day. It was getting like urgent multiple times.

I pooped my pants. It was getting painful. I was not able to see care of my kids, which I felt so bad about because my wife was taking care of my kids, which I felt so bad about because my wife was taking care of the kids alone. I couldn't sleep because I just keep waking up, having the poop, and then I was waking her up too.

And then after several nights of that, there was just one night where I was just curled up on the bathroom floor, and I was just like, I surrender. and I was just like, I surrender. So my wife just dropped me at the ER and I just checked myself in. Okay, so I'm at the LA County Hospital. Check myself in, like, 6, 7 a.m. What am I doing now? And started recording little, you know, voice memos.

Oh my God, I'm not going to end up. I don't know if it's just for me, or if it's for a story or something. This is a public hospital. It's a low ceiling, harsh lighting. There were a lot of people there who are in way worse shape than I was. People with drug problems, people living on the street,

immigrants would literally just come over the border. So when you put it in, they add the miniatures. They didn't have enough beds because of COVID. You want black for some clothes? Fine. So it sort of got stuck in the ER, which is fine. It was going to fall. OK.

It just meant I didn't have a bathroom. Huh? So okay in my bed feeling the pinch here and my stomach's on just gonna go every time I had to go the bathroom It basically I had to like sprint down the hall to the bathroom to the public bathroom Knock on the door and I had to be like oh my god, please is there anybody in there? Okay And then I would go in the bathroom. And I had to do this over and over and over and over again, for a day, and then another day, and I was just so desperate to think about anything

but pooping. So I just was obsessively reading on my phone about the weird genetic legacy of Neanderthals. Okay, that's unbranded. And I found that there were all these other diseases that scholars were speculating that we got from Neanderthals, other autoimmune diseases, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, which my mom has,

type two diabetes, another thing, they did a study of hospitalized COVID patients. If you inherited this one snippet from Neanderthals, it doubles, or in some cases quadruples their risk of, you know, like basically going to ICU and, or dying. Oh my God. Yeah. And in that hospital bed, I just, I just had this image

in my mind, like for the last few days, I just keep imagining these like tiny little neanderthals. Of tiny neanderthals and in their hands were these tiny little obsidian hand axes. And they're just like in the folds of my guts. Just like stabbing me and drawing these little droplets of blood out of me. These little cave people. Like it was like my brother, my long lost brother was like stabbing me in the back But like not the back the gut and I go to sleep in my knee and take shift and then the morning

They're all just like hacking away at my little guts. I was like oh it felt so clear to me I was like this is this is their vengeance like like we exterminated them we killed them We genocided them and now they are coming for us. They are coming for all of us, and they're coming for me in this hospital bed, in particular, and they're not gonna stop until they ruin my life. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about a lot.

After a quick break, Lottof keeps digging into the story of his long-lost brothers, the Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know if you are a butterfly or a man to shirt member of the lab, you're going to get some bonus content on Wednesday at 10 a.m. next Wednesday. I don't want to spoil what it is. It is related to this episode. And it's something I recorded during one of the toughest moments of my hospital stay. So be on the lookout next Wednesday 10 a.m. If you're not a member of the lab, you can subscribe at radiolab.org slash join thanks. Lulu, what if radio lab so after a couple of days in the ER. I got some good news. Yeah, we're good to go whenever you are. What's that? It's 1500 sand Pablo. They actually found a bed for me. Yeah, and they told you about where we're good to go whenever you are. What's that? Um, 1500 sandpubble. They actually found a bed for me.

Yeah, and they told you about where we're going, right, Kik? Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got transferred. I basically went from a public hospital that was a really, really, you know, resource-strapped desperate place to a very right across the street, wealthy hospital. It's like a police hotel. Where I had my own room. I have a window, and a big, big suite with a couch, and a bunch of chairs, and art on the walls,

and oh my god. A bathroom, a private bathroom with a shower. Yeah. I have never been so excited to see a toilet in my life. Oh, this is luxurious. Jubilation. My doctor is here. So this is going to be a lot easier, I think, hopefully.

Yeah, it feels like I have a month of a keychain or something. It's like a crappy vacation because I'm... My body is miserable, but there's art on the walls, I guess. Yeah. It was like a huge breakthrough. They gave me all these IV steroids and this big gun biologic drug, also through an IV,

and basically between the combo of that, I all of a sudden got some hours at night to sleep. And then also at that point, my wife brought my computer, and so then I was like, you could step up your research game. I could step up my research game, so I was like, I think we're all good. Poking around, and then I came across an article

co-written by this guy. I'm a Mario Gokchiman. I work on evolution in genomics. And in it, he argued. Did we get Crohn's disease from Neanderthals? No. No? The Neanderthals aren't entirely to blame. Huh? It seems to me that Crohn's disease is actually older than Neanderthals, older than humans. The Crohn's disease, or at least some genetic variations predisposing us to it, developed all the way back in homorectus.

The Homeerectus group in Africa, before they were spread across the world. Oh, wait, so this kind of contradicts what the other scientists found? Yeah, this kind of confused me too, but they actually don't contradict. So it turns out for a disease that's complicated as crones,

they're actually multiple parts of the genome that contribute to it. Some of those did come from sex with Neanderthals, but a lot also came from before, you know, we or they even existed. And for that reason, Omar says, it's more accurate to say that we share Crohn's disease with Neanderthals,

part of our legacy, in a way. So I was kind of back to square one, right? Yeah. But also I felt like with all of that inner species sex happening, they must have given us something, right? I'm just watching your need to have a research question. Yeah, that's probably it. That's probably it.

Because otherwise you're alone in a hospital room, wondering about the rest of your life. Right. But I have this question. Great question. What do you find? Okay. I find myself reading about this one particular Neanderthal skeleton that they found.

Uh, the so-called Old Man of Shannidar. Shannidar one. This is Penny Spikens. Professor of the Aucology of Human Origins, University of York. And she told me. So this is in Iraq. The Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Yeah. And he's really, really remarkable because he's someone who suffered a series of injuries, perhaps in something like a rockfall, we just don't know, has a one-with-a-darm, one damaged leg, probable blindness in one eye and partially deaf. Like this is someone who would not have been able

to provide for himself. He should have been dead shortly after these injuries. But, um, but based on the condition of his body and the condition of these wounds. This is an individual who lived for sort of 10, 15 years after those injuries. So they must have been looked after by others. Other Neanderthals. So, just imagine, in your, you're in a small tribe of people, like maybe 10 to 12 people, this guy can't leave the cave every morning to go get food, right? But like, this guy also can't defend himself if a cave lion or something comes up

and tries to attack him. So someone actually has to stay behind with him to take care of him constantly. Not just for short time, but has he really extended period of time? So it's really quite a sort of profound thing really. And while this old man of Shenadar is an exceptional example of this, he's not unique. Most of the antitals we find, I've got some injuries or illnesses that they've largely survived. We have more and better evidence for Neanderthals healing each other than we do for modern humans at the same time. And like I was learning this in a hospital bed where I was being cared for. How's everything good? Everything's good, how are you? Like honest to God, like genuinely well cared for. I need to go to the hospital now, I need to call for,

okay, then so I'll bring you some stuff, like bunches, like soul, okay great. By total strangers. Even that first hospital where I was stuck in the ER, they gave me great care too. They want a little car help bring you anything. No, I'm okay.

That's right. Oh, thank you. I'm okay. You can give a little bit more. Oh, yeah, that's funny. That's funny. Try to back me up, huh? Thank you.

Okay, great. I had this vision. Just like I had the vision before of like this knee-endertile. It was like, nice thing, I was like, no, no, no, wait, what like I had the vision before of like this Neanderthals like nice thing I was like no no no wait, what if it's the opposite like what if we instead what if they gave us the idea of healthcare and Even more deeply like like compassion and empathy like what if Neanderthals gave us our humanity? I love that idea is that is that something other people are Would would agree with you on I love that idea. Is that is that something other people are?

Would would agree with you on well, so I'm okay, so I ran it by penny the good question That's a pretty good question. Well, we don't know she was basically like there's there's there's literally no way to know We do have evidence for modern humans being cared for. It's not that they weren't caring for them It's just slightly more patchy evidence. Largely because the modern human fossil record is a lot, is kind of worse. And in a way, it makes sense if you think about it. So, like, Neanderthal remains, right? Because Neanderthals were basically in Europe, mostly. There's more universities and archaeologists and things like that in Europe who go out looking for these things. So, we don't know.

I mean, that's part of the frustrating thing about the archaeological past having these little insights, you know, these little vignettes of what's happening, but then losing quite a large part of it as well. So beautiful thought, but maybe not too, too see. Okay, it feels like a stretch because it is a stretch, because we don't have the fossil record to prove it. But, but, but, but, it's not, there is at least one thing that penny sort of, a crumb that penny threw me, that I think still holds.

You're hanging on, you're hanging on, okay. Okay, what is this? Which is this. In a cave in Northwestern Spain, they found the 49,000 year old remains of this Neanderthal called El Cidrone I. In the mouth of this Neanderthal, were two things that were notable. One was a dental abscess that looked very painful. Oh, okay.

And the other thing was Tartar buildup. Like calcified, like fossilized, like tooth gunk. Yeah, exactly, tooth gunk. Okay. And from that, these archaeologists, they basically like excavated this like targer and were able to figure out that this Neanderthal was eating popular leaves,

which are bitter tasting leaves with no nutritional value. Okay. Why? Why would this Neanderthal be eating popular leaves? Because popular leaves contain salicylic acid, which is the active ingredient in aspirin. Do humans have popular leaves in their teeth? So, we don't have any other evidence, it's very hard to find evidence,

but we don't have any other evidence of humans using aspirin basically at the same time. And Penny says, look, that makes total sense. Neanderthals, they were in Europe for way longer than we were. They knew the plants. They would have figured out some ways to use those plants to help them. And modern humans coming in,

weren't of known where to find painkillers. Right. They weren't of known where to find the antibiotics. They weren't necessarily of known, you know, how to make a splint or whatever they were using. So I'm sure they learn from each other. And modern humans may well have been quite dependent in some ways.

So, okay, so they didn't give us necessarily our compassion, our hospitals, or our humanity. We can't say that. We can't say any of that, even though I feel it in my heart. We can't say any of that. But what we can say is maybe they gave us ass strength. Maybe they gave us relief from pain. Yeah.

So there is that sense, isn't there, that maybe if you're gonna be ill, you might be better off amongst the Neanderthals. My goodness, me. So wait, first of all, I mean, we've been talking for a long time. So wait, first of all, I mean, we've been talking for a long time. Are you okay? Do you need a bathroom? You don't have to fake it.

You can just go. To quote my doctor, Dr. Oedhoff follow, who's awesome. I am, quote, basically in remission. So I'm back to normal. I'm in fighting shape, podcasting shape, as they call it. Okay, they just told me that I am good to go. So I'm like, just connecting my heart monitor here. Yeah, but I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. Less time researching from the toilet. Less time researching from the toilet.

Less time researching from the toilet. Still, if I'm being honest, I'm still researching from the toilet. I mean me too. Aren't we all? I think so much, Andrew. I'm really appreciate it, man. Yeah, I'm going home. Yeah, thank you. Thanks again, everybody. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much, Andrew. I'm really appreciate it, man.

Yeah, I'm going home. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Thanks again everybody, I really, really appreciate it. Radio Labs, a lot to have NASA. This episode was produced by Simon Adler. Special thanks to Inaras Istiaga, Carl Zimmer, Carly Mench, my GI doctor, Florence, Dami Lola, Odufalu, and her entire team, the staff at LA County USC Medical Center

and Kek USC hospitals, really everyone who worked at both of those hospitals. And of course, thank you to the Neanderthals. And before we go, if you liked this investigation into a lot of gut and deep history, our colleagues at WNYC have a brand new investigative podcast out. It is about New Jersey and crime and a murder mystery, a potential political murder mystery.

It is hosted and reported by WNYC's senior reporter Nancy Solomon, and I have to say it's really good. I'm addicted. It's called Dead End, it's from WNYC, and I'll play your short clip. 9-1-1, where is your emergency? Uh, yes, tomato, run, drive, and skillment, New Jersey. In September, 2014, a crime on a suburban cul-de-sac shocks New Jersey's political world.

The mystery deepens over the death of John and Joyce Sheridan, a prominent New Jersey couple with powerful connections and close friends of Governor Chris Christie. Partially methodical and human. I think it's a podcast you would like if you are curious about our world and then the various forces controlling it. Again that's dead end. Find it wherever you get podcasts. My name is Michael Snyder and I'm Conan from Kansas City, Missouri. Radio Lab was created by Jada Bomerade and is edited by Sorn Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Lats-If-Nasser are our co-hosts.

Susie Lektemberg is our executive producer. Dylan Keith is our director of Sound Design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brestler, Rachel Kiesig, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz-Gutti-Ares, Cindy-Anna Samba-Dom, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwan, Alex Nieson, Sara Carrey, Anna Reskowitz-Paz, Sarah Sandback, Aryan Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster, with help from Carolyn McCusker and Bowen Wong. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Adam Shibble. Thank you. Hi this is Beth from San Francisco. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science

programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, Assignment Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundation's support for radio lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.