Reacción a "A genetic variant has been discovered that increased height and accelerated metabolism in modern humans"

It is very interesting work, although basal metabolism—not to mention height—must depend on many more genetic variants. This one seems to have been selected in northern Europe over the last few thousand years.

The estimated age of this variant overlaps with the estimated time of divergence between modern humans and Neanderthals (where it is not present in the few genomes available from these extinct humans); given that Neanderthals clearly had a very high-calorie diet due to the extreme cold conditions of their environment, I think it is plausible that their adaptation to a high basal metabolism was due to other genetic variants that are still unknown. Beyond investigating possible cognitive differences with functional studies and organoids, it would certainly be interesting to also explore metabolic differences.