Elizabeth Pennisi reports on a ‘Petri-dish’ experiment that substitutes a Neanderthal gene for a modern human one in a culture of human brain tissue. It gives some idea of how our very close relative may have thought differently from us. Pennisi, E. 2021. Neanderthal-inspired ‘minibrains’ hint at what makes modern humans special. Science, online news item; DOI:10.1126/science.abh0331