An article published in the journal “Nature” reports a genetic study carried out using data obtained from 27,566 Icelanders to understand which parts of modern humans’ genome contain genes inherited from Neanderthals following interbreedings, and what role it plays in modern humans. A team of researchers performed a comparative analysis with hominin genomes sequenced at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, finding many different genes scattered in the Icelandic genomes. By putting them together, they reconstructed at least 38% of the Neanderthal genome using 14 million fragments. A surprise came from the discovery of Denisovans genes, usually present in Asian populations, but it’s possible that they too were inherited from Neanderthals who descended from interbreedings with Denisova.