While watching a television program on Neandertal origins, you hear the molecular geneticist Matthias Krings state that mtDNA analysis found that two dozen base pairs were different between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans, indicating we are not related to Neandertals. Your roommate asks you if this is true. What would be a correct response?

The mtDNA analysis is true, but testing of nuclear DNA has found some similarities between Neandertals and modern humans.

Explanation:

Neandertal are the primitive and extinct species of archaic humans who started to live in the Eurasia or Europe about forty thousand years ago. Originally they are originated at Africa but later on migrated to Europe.

mtDNA or Mitochondrial DNA is a DNA present in the mitochondria that uses and converts the energy from the food into adenosine triphosphate, commonly known as ATP.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis done on Neandertals DNA and modern man shows that there is a difference of two dozen base pairs of it. But the nuclear DNA testing has shown some similarities.

Thus the answer is - --

The mtDNA analysis is true, but testing of nuclear DNA has found some similarities between Neandertals and modern humans.