A New Year, a New Book

My time-traveling science reporter—Tom Cook—is back! … for the sequel to Neander: A Time Travel Adventure. The new book, Neander: Exploitation, is now published, and this time around our hero faces new conflicts and threats: a biomedical plot, a battle for Neanderthal leadership, exploitation, and just plain old greed. But don’t worry, there are uplifting parts, too!

In addition to some of the old characters from “N1” in this science-fiction, time-travel adventure series, I introduce a few new ones. Good and bad. And bring in more about a key aspect of the story: DNA.

While the DNA—and it’s different alleles, isoforms, and variants—of Neanderthals and Sapiens (that’s us: Anatomically Modern Humans) is very similar, there are some important differences, and I showcase a couple of them. And how they could change the future.

As part of my year-long effort to research and write this book, my study included some very cool scientific discoveries about our long-lost Neanderthal “cousins.” For example, for years, scientists thought that modern Africans largely lacked Neanderthal DNA. But a Princeton University study in late January 2020 revealed an unexpectedly large amount of Neanderthal ancestry in modern populations across Africa, including the sub-Saharan region. It suggests that much of this DNA came from Europeans migrating back to Africa over the past 20,000 years.

Another scientific update involved the latest Neanderthal demise scenario (they apparently went extinct around 40,000 years ago—but not in my books!)

The latest theory (presented in May of 2020) to explain Neanderthal extinction is the idea of “competitive exclusion.” Meaning that—even though the supercomputer model simulation used in the research did not specify the details—possible reasons for the superiority of Homo sapiens could have been associated with “better hunting techniques, stronger resistance to pathogens, or higher level of fecundity” that occurred “around 43 to 38 thousand years ago.” The exact time frame my books cover.

And finally, one of the most exciting announcements in science of the past year as it relates to this book series was the October awarding of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their pioneering work in genome editing. And specifically for their work on the CRISPR technology that they developed. And CRISPR is a central part of my story. Talk about being up to date!

So if you’re ready to be swept away in a fast-paced tale that straddles two—and more—worlds 40,000 years apart, Neander: Exploitation should be on your reading list for the new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021!

— Harald