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This is scientific American's 60 second science.

I'm Christopher and Tagata.

The risk factors for COVID-19 are many.

Old age, obesity, heart conditions, but early genetic studies have

identified another trait that some people who develop severe COVID-19 seem to share, a cluster of

genetic variations on their third chromosome.

And that DNA sequence likely derives from Neanderthals, says Hugo Seberg of the Max Planck Institute.

It is quite striking that this variant has lingered on for 50,000 years.

50,000 years ago is the approximate time humans and Neanderthal's interbred.

And over the millennia, those Neanderthal variants have become more common in some Homo sapiens populations than others.

For example, about 16% of people of European descent carry at least one copy of the Neanderthal stretch, half of South Asians do, and nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis.

And that's kind of fascinating that it is so high, I mean that that points towards that it must have been beneficial in the past.

I mean it's much higher than we expect and then it's totally expunged in East Station and China.

So something has happened. East Station and China.

Some things have happened, driving the frequency in certain placing and removing it totally in other places.

The details are in the journal Nature.

Seaberg and his colleague write that perhaps the Neanderthal DNA happens to boost the risk

of developing severe COVID-19, and they point to the fact that in the UK, people of

Bangladeshi descent have twice the risk of dying of

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