http://www.physorg.com/news83425678.html

Food for thought: recently there was an article about a perfectly healthy hybrid created from the breeding a bottle nose dolphin with a false killer whale. What is in need of discussion is how far apart those two aquatic mammals are from each other on thier specific evolutionary tree in comparision to how far apart humans were from neaderthals on our evolutionary tree. If dolphins and false killer whales split further ago from now than did humans and neanderthals in each respective trees, then one may concur that it would have been entirely possible for humans and neaderthals to interbreed....especially in the earlier years after the split. Maybe we were too far apart in the later years (cerca 40,000 years ago) but perhaps there could have been ealier, limited interbreeding before the genetics of humans and neanderthals diverged too greatly for reproduction. Talk amongst yourselves...

Could neanderthals have just bred out of the human race?

Perhaps humans and Neanderthals *did* mate, but on a somewhat limited scale. That genetic mix would be be diluted over the years, but could have combined with natural geographic specialization processes to create the distinct races of man that we see today. I wonder if there may have been any other species of man that have not yet been discovered yet that could have also contributed in such a manner?

There have been maybe a dozen different branches of the human family over the last few million years with the last dying out fairly "recently". Certain people do seem to have what could be called neanderthal characteristics; heavy set, strong, not too bright, facial structure, etc.

People with autism make me think. Whatever their race, they seem to have very similar features. Is it down to the disease or is it traces of a throwback ancestry?