Neanderthal Sinc

Neanderthal-introgressed DNA persisting in the modern human genome, across 22 autosomes.

Thousands of years after Neanderthals disappeared, fragments of their DNA persist in living humans, between one and four percent of most non-African genomes. I mapped the regions of one individual's chromosomes where Neanderthal sequence remains, drawing each of the 22 autosomes as a sinc-pulse interference wave that swells wherever the archaic DNA survives.

The distribution is not random. Neanderthal segments cluster around genes related to immunity, skin, and metabolism, and are absent from regions under strong purifying selection. What remains is a quiet trace of ancient interbreeding, written into the present.

Provenance

Genome in a Bottle (GIAB), HG002 benchmark VCF + Neanderthal ancestry stratification (GRCh38)
https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/genome-bottle
Genome in a Bottle Consortium / National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Reference genome GRCh38 from the Genome Reference Consortium.

Materials

Archival giclée print on fine-art paper, a faithful digital reproduction of a pen-plotted work. Each print ships with a signed data-provenance insert card.

Included

• One archival giclée print (unframed)
• Signed data-provenance insert card
• Care instructions

Studio

We are Genetics of Design, a data art studio that uses pen plotting as its medium. Every piece we make begins with a public record, whether road networks, genomes, star catalogs, or species data, which we translate through custom code into composition, density, and line, and publish alongside the provenance of the data it came from.