Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Q: Paragraph: According to two studies published on Wednesday, DNA from these pre-modern humans may play a role in the appearance of hair and skin as well as the risk of certain diseases. Although Neanderthals became extinct 28,000 years ago in Europe, as much as one-fifth of their DNA has survived in human genomes due to interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago, one of the studies found, although any one individual has only about 2 percent of caveman DNA. “The 2 percent of your Neanderthal DNA might be different than my 2 percent of Neanderthal DNA, and it’s found at different places in the genome,” said geneticist Joshua Akey, who led one of the studies. Put it all together in a study of hundreds of people, and “you can recover a substantial proportion of the Neanderthal genome.”  Both studies confirmed earlier findings that the genomes of east Asians harbor more Neanderthal DNA than those of Europeans. This could be 21 percent more, according to an analysis by Akey and Benjamin Vernot, published online in the journal Science. Still, “more” is a relative term. According to the paper by geneticists at Harvard Medical School, published in Nature, about 1.4 percent of the genomes of Han Chinese in Beijing and south China, as well as Japanese in Tokyo come from Neanderthals, compared to 1.1 percent of the genomes of Europeans. Anthropologists expressed caution about the findings. Fewer than half a dozen Neanderthal fossils have yielded genetic material, said Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in  St. Louis, one of the world’s leading experts on early humans. Using this small sample to infer how much Neanderthal DNA persists in today’s genome is therefore questionable, he said. As expected, since Neanderthals never existed in Africa, Africans and those who trace their ancestry to that continent have almost no Neanderthal DNA, the Harvard team found. Human ancestors began migrating out of humanity’s natal continent as early as 1 million years ago, paleoanthropologists infer from fossil evidence, and between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago evolved into the robust, large-browed Homo neanderthalensis in Western Europe. Ever since scientists extracted DNA from the remains of Neanderthals, they have known that people today carry snippets of cavemen genes, in the amounts of 2 percent to 3 percent. That clinched the case that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, probably 40,000 to 80,000 years ago, soon after the latter arrived in Europe from Africa. The new studies add details about how much DNA and of what kind we inherited. “The story of early human evolution is captivating in itself, yet it also has far-reaching implications for understanding the organization of the modern human genome,” Irene Eckstrand of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partially funded the research, said in a statement. “Every piece of this story that we uncover tells us more about our ancestors’ genetic contributions to modern human health and disease.”  The Harvard team used a novel genetic algorithm to estimate the probability that a particular genetic variant arose from Neanderthals. Basically, they started with the genome of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal, and determined whether pieces of it also appeared in some non-Africans but not in sub-Saharan Africans. The algorithm identified remnants of Neanderthal DNA, called alleles, in genes associated with type 2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, lupus, biliary cirrhosis and smoking behavior. “But we can’t tell if the Neanderthal alleles are contributing to disease,” said Harvard’s Sriram Sankararaman, lead author of the paper in Nature. Areas “with increased Neanderthal ancestry tend to be higher the farther away you go from genes,” sitting, instead, in regions of the genome that do not actually produce the proteins, enzymes and other working molecules of the body. Neanderthal DNA does sit within some genes, however, such as those for keratin, a fibrous protein that makes skin, hair and nails tough and can be beneficial in colder environments by providing thicker insulation. The endurance of this Neanderthal DNA suggests that our caveman inheritance was adaptive, picked by natural selection to persist in our genome, generation after generation, because it conferred a survival advantage in individuals who carried it. The Harvard team analyzed the genomes of 1,004 people to estimate which populations got more or fewer Neanderthal DNA. Confirming a 2013 study, they found more in the genomes of east Asians than in Europeans. But they also dug deeper. Puerto Ricans and Spaniards have the least Neanderthal DNA, 1.05 percent and 1.07 percent respectively. That is curious because Neanderthals made their last stand on the Iberian peninsula, finally dying out there 28,000 years ago. Across all populations, Neanderthal DNA is conspicuously low in regions of the X chromosome and in testes-specific genes. The paucity of Neanderthal genes among those active in the testes suggests that interbreeding wasn’t a resounding success: It produced viable children, but the males were infertile. Although as much as 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA persists in modern genomes, according to the Washington scientists, vast regions of the latter are Neanderthal deserts. Among them is a region of chromosome 7 that includes a gene called FOXP2. “FOXP2 has previously been implicated in speech and language and may be an example of a gene that influences a uniquely human trait, which is why we find no Neanderthal sequences in these regions,” said Akey. Claim: Modern humans more Neanderthal than once thought, studies suggest.

A: It’s getting harder and harder to take umbrage if someone calls you a Neanderthal.
****
Q: Paragraph: That’s when the 37-year-old nurse and mother got scared for her family. “I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought, ‘If I brought this home to my mom, she’s probably going to die, and it’s probably going to be my fault.’ So I had to find a different way,” Neuburger said. To protect her family, Neuburger moved from her parents’ home, where she had been living with her son after a recent divorce, and into a camper. Even though she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to hug her 11-year-old boy again, she’s glad she chose to self-isolate — especially since she began feeling sick five days after that hospital scare. Holed up in the camper as she awaits the results of a COVID-19 test, Neuburger is among countless doctors and nurses around the world who are choosing to move to hotels, tents, garages and other temporary housing to protect their loved ones — even as they risk exposing themselves to a virus that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including a number of medical workers. Hotels, some business owners and people who run Airbnb rental homes are among those offering lodging, sometimes for free, to doctors and nurses needing to self-isolate. Social media is full of efforts to match medical professionals with temporary housing. One Facebook group, RVs 4 MDs, connects RV owners with medical workers. In Ireland, a real estate company has used Instagram to offer up empty flats. The extra layer of isolation means those who are risking their own health to save the lives of others are now sacrificing even more as they resign themselves to virtual contact with their kids, parents, spouses and others they would normally fall back on for emotional support during this stressful time. “It’s upsetting — even though you know it’s the right decision to leave your family,” said Mica Sosa, a floor nurse at an oncology unit at a Phoenix hospital, who moved into a friend’s empty condominium a few weeks ago. “It’s so bizarre to turn around and walk away from the people you normally run to.”  Events Sosa knows she will miss: Easter with her 4-year-old son; her mom’s 71st birthday; and her own 7th wedding anniversary. Some colleagues thought she was moving too soon. But with her mother’s age and her own husband in his 60s, Sosa didn’t want to wait until Phoenix had a surge in cases to take precautions. “Why wait until you are New York to get that radical? You need to protect yourself now,” she said. “I think everyone needs to look at their own family situation and decide what’s best for them.”  For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But the virus can lead to more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems. Outside Portland, Maine, a pregnant Joy Engel is staying home with a toddler son while her husband, Dr. Ben Hagopian, lives in a friend’s empty in-law apartment. “We fought hard for this pregnancy and we weren’t willing to take the risk,” Engel said. For Neuburger, the gravity of the coronavirus took hold in one shift in the intensive care unit at the Minnesota hospital where she works. She felt her mask leaking as she cared for one patient, but she kept doing her job and switched to a protective respiratory device when she could. Then came the patient whose ventilator tube came apart. On the way home from work, she called her dad. She told him to take her son, Xander Ponkin, upstairs, while she went directly to the basement where she had been staying. She kept away from the rest of her family until she could move into a camper two days later. “My dad made me give him a hug even though I didn’t want to. He said, ‘What happens if you get sick and die? I won’t see you again,’” she said. She used Facebook to find the camper, and plans to pay its owner $200 a month. It’s now parked in the driveway of her former in-laws, who are caring for Xander, in the Twin Cities suburb of St. Paul Park. She has been able to play with him in the yard — at a distance. They also use video chat to play games, and she watches from her window as he shoots baskets outside. The hardest part, Neuburger said, is not being able to give him a hug. “I’m making the best of it. I’m trying to,” she said. “Sometimes I just sit here and cry. But then … I feel like I sleep better knowing I’m not possibly infecting my family.”  ___ Associated Press writer David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report. Claim: Doctors, nurses leave homes to protect families from virus.

A: Lisa Neuburger was caring for a patient with the coronavirus when the person’s ventilator tube became detached. As she worked to help the patient, she knew fluid from the person’s lungs could be spraying into the air, possibly exposing her to the virus, despite the protective gear she was wearing.
****
Q: Paragraph: There are four slashes among the women’s siblings, others among her immediate family, and most family members’ symbols are partially colored in. Each partially filled circle represents a cancer diagnosis. Each slash indicates a death. Although white women get breast cancer more frequently, it’s usually diagnosed later and is more severe in African American women. Breast cancer death rates among black women were about 40 percent higher than among white women between 1999 and 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Ricks-Santi, director of the Hampton University Cancer Research Center, and another Hampton colleague, John McDonald, recently received a $446,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the genetics behind breast cancer diagnoses in African American women. In particular, they’re trying to refine genetic tests that don’t seem to be as effective for black women as white. “I wanted to make sure that there was equity in the way that genetics and genomics was being applied across populations,” Ricks-Santi said. She has a longstanding interest in cancer research, dating back to when she was a kid. Her family has a history of cancer; her father has prostate cancer. That led her to pursue an undergraduate degree at Hampton University and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. She worked as a post-doctoral fellow in a joint cancer studies program between Georgetown and Howard University. There, she saw a trend among genetic tests for breast cancer, particularly the most common ones, BRCA 1 and 2. They are sometimes an indicator for some of the hardest to treat forms, and they’re also correlated with other kinds of cancer in men and women. At Georgetown’s cancer center, which Ricks-Santi said served mostly white and affluent patients, BRCA tests often helped doctors decide if women were candidates for preventative treatment or if they needed additional testing. At Howard’s cancer center, which served more black patients, BRCA tests often came back inconclusive. This, Ricks-Santi said, makes it hard for oncologists to come up with specific, informed approaches for patients of color. “You can’t do that if you’re not identifying the right risk factor, the right gene,” said Melissa Gomes, a mental health nurse practitioner and a co-investigator on the study. “You can’t make that personalized approach if it wasn’t based on a population that included you.” The study that Ricks-Santi and McDonald are leading uses family history and genetic data from 300 breast cancer patients at Howard, along with relatives without cancer diagnoses and other types of cancer. Ricks-Santi will conduct statistical research to find candidate genes that could provide a better test. McDonald, an assistant professor of physics, will then conduct the laboratory phase of the study, injecting those genes into cancer cells in Petri dishes to determine exactly what kind of effect those have. They’re also working with Hampton University students on the project, who will be paid with grant money. “It’s nice to create that pipeline of researchers that look like the population we want to study,” Gomes said. This round of funding lasts for three years. But they’re already looking toward the next phase. That’s where Gomes’ experience comes in, whose background is clinical psychiatry. She sees patients four days a week. In a second study, once they’ve isolated some possible genes, they want to control for those genes and then investigate social circumstances that might contribute to breast and other kinds of cancer. Gomes hopes to use her background in psychiatry and patient care to help build connections in Hampton Roads in addition to helping with the social research. “Nurses are considered one of the most trusted health professionals,” Gomes said. “I think that the community trusts us and they value their opinion.” Ricks-Santi is hopeful about this holistic approach, citing her father’s own experience. Because of the small size of his tumor, they took a more wait-and-see approach to treatment. He moved to Puerto Rico for six months to relax. It seemed to work. His prostate-specific antigen levels, an indicator of that kind of cancer, dropped significantly and have stayed stable. “It’s scary and exciting,” Ricks-Santi said. “There’s so many possibilities.” ___ Information from: Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.com/ Claim: University studies cancer risk and testing for black women.

A:
Luisel Ricks-Santi keeps the medical family tree of one of the participants in her study taped to the door of her office in her lab at Hampton University.
****