Bay Area researchers and colleagues have decoded fragments of the genome of long-extinct Neanderthals, the human species that was our closest relative until vanishing from Europe about 30,000 years ago. [...] The research reveals that the fossil, belonging to a middle-aged man, is 99.5 to 99.9 percent genetically similar to homo sapiens, the new and more modern humans who co-existed with Neanderthal and eventually drove them to extinction. The tiny differences -- "a drop in the bucket," said Rubin -- are enough to distinguish the heavyset and thick-browed Neanderthals from taller, slender and smarter humans. Neanderthals are believed to have lacked the tool and art-making abilities of humans.