The 1 percent difference:
Humans are distinct from chimpanzees in a number of important respects, despite sharing nearly 99 percent of their DNA. New analyses are revealing which parts of the genome set our species apart.
Image: James Balog Getty Images
In Brief
- Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans and share nearly 99 percent of our DNA.
- Efforts to identify those regions of the human genome that have changed the most since chimps and humans diverged from a common ancestor have helped pinpoint the DNA sequences that make us human.
- The findings have also provided vital insights into how chimps and humans can differ so profoundly, despite having nearly identical DNA blueprints.
Six years ago I jumped at an opportunity to join the international team that was identifying the sequence of DNA bases, or “letters,” in the genome of the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). As a biostatistician with a long-standing interest in human origins, I was eager to line up the human DNA sequence next to that of our closest living relative and take stock. A humbling truth emerged: our DNA blueprints are nearly 99 percent identical to theirs. That is, of the three billion letters that make up the human genome, only 15 million of them—less than 1 percent—have changed in the six million years or so since the human and chimp lineages diverged.
Evolutionary theory holds that the vast majority of these changes had little or no effect on our biology. But somewhere among those roughly 15 million bases lay the differences that made us human. I was determined to find them. Since then, I and others have made tantalizing progress in identifying a number of DNA sequences that set us apart from chimps.
This article was originally published with the title What Makes Us Human?.
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69 Comments
Add CommentThe abilty to lie ,steal ,cheat , murder, go to war, gossip ,go into fits or range, destroy our world, use words or technology to hurt each other and we believe at the end of all things there is a god who is some how going to make it all right and some how we are in control of everything. When we are not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the Aps can do is way less in comparision . Inreased intelegece makes humans far worse than all the animals because our intelegence liberates us from animal limitations .
Another thought we belittle each other and in the same breath we curse each other & bless each other. We covet each others things but we don't give . We say hurtful words deeds and actions to each other when we should practice love and tolerance. We tear each other down when we suold lift each other up. We use and take way our brothers goods & livelyhoods for the sake of material gain when we should practice love & hospitality. We mean spirted greedy little toadys of creatures and I'm admazed that god hasn't struck all mankind down like Sodem . We are lowest of all animals forms because we can do anything our intelgence can think of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAps in comparsion are lmited in the scope of the intelegence and abilties but they are a simplied creature that is much like us. If our layer of civilation was peeled away we would degenrate into savage ape like behaviour in no time at all.
If you are planning on making a great point and sound intelligent you should learn how to spell or at the very least use spell check.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI loved the article, it's a brave new world, perhaps one day humans will reject organized religeon and accept science as the true savior of our race, one that is trapped on a ball of dirt swirling around a dying star.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry, did you have anything to say that might be remotely related to the article to which you are responding, or do you just like to sieze every opportunity of practicing shock evangelism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one of the best articles I've read in a while. The breakthroughs coming from research of this kind are nothing short of amazing. Just think of the medical advances!
While there exists the idea that there is a biological difference between us and other animals, there is also a more social reason. As anthropologist Leslie White says, while we are able to assign meaning to things, other animals can only interpret the meaning we've established. This is why a cat understands what the sound of a can opener means, but they cannot assign that sound to the idea of food; that's our doing. When giving directions, we have the ability to symbolize a landmark or an intersection by a salt shaker. The salt shaker obviously has been given a more "edible" purpose, but that ability to make it symbolize something else is what White says separates us from other animals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou do indeed raise some very good points!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRT
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What an extraordinary and insightful window onto our collective past this article offers us. It would seem that evidence offered by genetics is fast becoming as powerful, perhaps even more powerful, a tool for accessing information from deep time as the evidence yielded by the fossils themselves. If genetics can now inform us about such processes as speech development and dietary changes, and even how long ago these events happened (and the implied social consequences of these things), what will future genetic studies bring? I wish Dr. Pollard well in her future endeavors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm intrigued to note that all the point mutations in the HAR1 region are AT->CG mutations. While CG base pairs might be more stable than AT on account of having an additional hydrogen bond between them, the overall picture of events seems extraordinary. Is there a mechanistic explanation for this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been reading Scientific American for over fifty years and have yet to come upon an article that holds so much promise in the line of furthering our knowledge about ourselves. This very insightful 'discovery', after others had passed over it, may very well lead to powerful new ways to detect and treat human-specific diseases and defects in early life. Congratulations of the highest order must go to Katherine Pollard, and my personal best wishes for her future work in the field of human-evolution studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou hit on a very interesting point. If the 118 base pair sequence that makes up HAR1 have been so highly conserved over 300 million years with only 2 base pair substitutions since chickens and chimps diverged, what type of natural selection process could account for 18 base pair changes in the span of 6 millions years since we split with the chimps. And why haven't we seen examples of 4, 6, 8 or more base pair variations in any other species? Is it possible that the only viable genetic variation for the HAR1 sequence would be the ancestral and the human versions, with nothing in between? If so, what are the odds that random mutation could be responsible for 18 base pair changes all occurring at the same time in such a highly conserved piece of DNA code? I think these questions should be answered by the author!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article was very insightful. Based on the science - I wonder if they could show or determine if one race or people are more human than all others. It sounds controversial but I'd be willing to read about it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore human? Uhhh...no.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdavidsonjt:
There are no significant genetic differences between human populations and therefore race is not a biological term but a social construct. Only different people groups or populations exist in scientific terms.
And what purpose would it have it we determined one "race" to be "more human" than others? You must be a wacky [insert "race" here] supremacist.
Many thanks, Dr. Pollard, for sharing your work with us. Unlike many modern scientists, you write clearing with a direct, informative narrative but I can't help but ponder two issues: the fate of our genetic kin such as Neanderthal and our specie's other early parents or cousins, and what it is beyond our genetics which make us human.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the first, provided it might be possible to secure DNA from still more Neanderthal specimen and perhaps Homo floresiensis, (and others?) why did we survive and these other forms didn't? Will we every have a preponderance of evidence?
And as for being human, I can't help but think that even when that arrogant term "junk DNA" has gone away, and we know far more about how we are mechanically put together in our biology, where is humanity? Perhaps, we can break down a genetic advantage to altruism for kindness and a predilection for harmony and symmetry in our selection of mates for appreciating the Parthenon, but where is human joy? Is the delight we feel when holding a baby only that of genetic continuity? Or is the transcendence we experience when in the arms of our lover or seeing a Renaissance fresco, merely a chemical release of serotonin merely due to stress reduction and a sense of security programmed by feeling we are not in danger?
As individuals we all wish to be special and perhaps as a specie, it is predictable that we wish the same. Yet in our explorations of the construction of our bodies and minds, I rather suspect that indeed the evidence will indicate that our total is far greater than the sum of our parts.
Fascinating article, but let the study of the genome amongst the scientist be approached and understood as an Art of Nature and not as catastrophe of random mutations. To suggest and assume that all genetic legacy is mutation based undue impart by any association with regards to actions of the biological organism and its integration into its environment is ridiculous. The insight that 98.5% genetic human code is non-protein based must mean that it is closer to mental based documentation perhaps which functions on the symbolism power over reality that humans are uniquely known for...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore documentary examples of active so called mutations of the genome over generations and species is a must... How rapid can these rapid changes in our DNA occur really? Time is a human idea, a fabrication of the genome itself.
If a man can suck a females breast and drink her milk because he symbolically loves her or the milk then why wouldn't an active physiological happening be prone to occur as a result of a successful use thought acquired and performed and stored somewhere in the genetic profile?
What is time really, who does it belong to? Yours to you alone, mine to me alone, together a third superimposed more active occurrence for observation. I'm pretty certain that fooling the genome into oblivion will cause its rapid instant mutation to transmute itself somehow and somewhere, and I'm also pretty certain that the manual dexterity evolved originally solely for the perfection of the brush on canvas as Painting must have been in the Mind of the Human genome since before its conception.
Pictosurial: "Fascinating article, but let the study of the genome amongst the scientist be approached and understood as an Art of Nature and not as catastrophe of random mutations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis false dichotomy strands itself upon its incautious terms. How do you define 'art' within acceptable scientific parameters? And what on Earth does a 'catastrophe' imply in such a context? The statement, "Time is a human idea, a fabrication of the genome itself." is frankly nonsensical.
Actually, I'm pretty convinced the entire thing was nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPardon my ambiguous comment, I forget that science is very much stuck up inside its own holo box of grandeur mechanisms and imaginary notions which they still deem real. What is meant by 'Art' within acceptable contexts of scientific parameters is this, all pursuits and explorations of the process Nature uses to disguise herself from herself is an Art and not some one-way mechanized rational system completed by logical approaches, to call evolution a millennia of random mutation and say this is rational progressive thinking of genius forever incites the same dead old scientific responses as to why and how humans and other species truly evolved and is undermining the quantum of genetic possibility and happenings. If evolution was truly random mutations all around the formulas say catastrophe and dead ends, so what becomes of the lineage of genome that survives? Was it composting itself on something higher, more precise or even more hidden perhaps? Mimesis is a very well known tendency amongst various genome. All I'm saying is that a back-end blueprint of the genetic structure must exist before a radical change is taken in a direction and accepted by the whole of the species. Not necessarily intelligent design just a design without parameters and trivial notions of space and time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes the genus, at the moment of coming into existence preemptively know something fundamental about its surroundings and environments to have brought it there in the first place? You can't look at evolution as a one-way train based on time alone because if the concept of time were removed from human reality where would we be? After all, all realities are existing simultaneously and to say schism here and schism there and then try to patch it up with the intellectual manipulation of time as an external unwired genetic trait is absurd. If science can explain why the genome expires then we might start to make some progress, until then we are already dead...
Tomorrow was really yesterday and today is just a corporeal dream. Time is fabricated by reality producing machines in order to produce reality, and here we find the Human genome, likes to think inside a holo, likes to die, likes to change, likes to call impossibilities nonsense because they don't fit and or mingle with his intellectual parameters or ideas, the psyche is a whole synesthetic function of the genus not a schismatic oeuvre of unassociated regions and cortex's. But I already know your egos are too high on the plasticity of mathematics and a single interpretative evidence of knowledge.
Egad, Pictosurial, please learn what the words mean before you use them. A few lessons on proper sentence construction might also contribute to making your nonsensical meanderings a bit more comprehensible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunny, and here I go thinking how you could design things so proper, instead you should ponder how you could possibly genome construction an entire reality without much trouble or effect to the whole whatsoever pre intra-uterine... hmm?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPictosurial, I am fluent both in Dutch and in English, but the unique brand of Pictosurialese (or should that be 'Pictosuralian'?) which is evidently your own native language is unknown to me. However, an attempted reading through of what you have written (and I do mean 'attempted') leads me to suspect that it is likely some form of jingoistic pseudo-intellectual clap-trap. Still, it was good for a chuckle, so thanks for that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislol ambertooth, so what if I write in a frenzy, disjointed and all abstracted because I can never jot all my thoughts down, my real idiom is Pictosurial morphology itself, but your right, that was quite bad anyways. All things considered, science still can't claim anything of the true nature of the genome because it neither can explain creation nor reduce death and there is nothing new it claims to be discovering which I didn't already learn from my brush aeons ago...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm pretty sure you weren't alive aeons ago, so let's just press on with today shall we?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of your thoughts on the matter, time is not a figment of human imagination. The universe expands, stars form, grow old, and die, climate changes, planets turn, etc. Time is built into the fabric of space itself - to argue otherwise is both futile and absurd.
I also think science is more likely to discover the 'true' nature of the genome than you are. Making blanket statements of the fallibility of human knowledge do not make you an expert, nor does thinly veiled pseudo-religious dogma refute the discoveries that have been and will be made on our history and evolution.
Finally, your inability to apply the basic principles of grammar and spelling are literally destroying your chances of creating any kind of understanding in this conversation of whatever points - if any - you are trying to make. But then, maybe that IS the point.
Earth calling Pictosurial... Earth calling Pictosurial...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, just as long as you don't actually expect anyone to take what you say seriously. You've pretty much blown your chances in that direction anyway. Why is it that it's the borderline wackos who turn out to have a quasi-religious glint in their eye? On another note, it is to be regretted that such an exceptional article as Dr. Pollard's should have comments appended to it which are notable for their lack of coherence, logic, and cogency. Way to go for shooting yourself in the foot there, Pictosurial.
If we diverged from a common ancestor and can measure the time since a a trait was inherited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does the ability to tolerate lactose proteins vary among geographically separate populations?
Did this protein marker also appear in genes related to vision?
It's not unlikely that the strongest force in our evolution over the last 5 million years is ourselves, and the ability to form a cohesive and peaceful society.
The question that has me fixed on this page for nearly 20 minutes, and is beyond this well written article.
"How will transportation further affect our evolution?"
"We will adapt everything to be more efficient Food, domesticated animals, ourselves. What inefficiencies are desirable?"
"What in our genome will be legal to modify and by whom?"
"Are we wise enough to recognize valuable traits?"
"Can anyone reasonably vote on something like that?"
"
If we diverged from a common ancestor and can measure the time since a a trait was inherited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does the ability to tolerate lactose proteins vary among geographically separate populations?
Did this protein marker also appear in genes related to vision?
It's not unlikely that the strongest force in our evolution over the last 5 million years is ourselves, and the ability to form a cohesive and peaceful society.
The question that has me fixed on this page for nearly 20 minutes, and is beyond this well written article.
"How will transportation further affect our evolution?"
"We will adapt everything to be more efficient Food, domesticated animals, ourselves. What inefficiencies are desirable?"
"What in our genome will be legal to modify and by whom?"
"Are we wise enough to recognize valuable traits?"
"Can anyone reasonably vote on something like that?"
"
If we diverged from a common ancestor and can measure the time since a a trait was inherited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does the ability to tolerate lactose proteins vary among geographically separate populations?
Did this protein marker also appear in genes related to vision?
It's not unlikely that the strongest force in our evolution over the last 5 million years is ourselves, and the ability to form a cohesive and peaceful society.
The question that has me fixed on this page for nearly 20 minutes, and is beyond this well written article.
"How will transportation further affect our evolution?"
"We will adapt everything to be more efficient Food, domesticated animals, ourselves. What inefficiencies are desirable?"
"What in our genome will be legal to modify and by whom?"
"Are we wise enough to recognize valuable traits?"
"Can anyone reasonably vote on something like that?"
"
Please remove the duplicate postings. (sorry )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell apes don't have spell checkers nor do they have nuclear weapons but look at what we do with our tools. The apes and other creature have tools but they dont have the abilities we do. Apes are social creatures but they lack the fine details we have. I feel our social abilities make us Humans a real pain in the butt. The Apes the same as humans but our ability to destroy each other and the planet are far smarter than us humans. We have the ability to curse each other and to bless each. To steal and to give to cause the holocaust and to save countless lives. It is with our god given abilities we choose.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe writer makes sense there is some part of our DNA recipe that is unique. In time it might be found what it is but as far as Im concerned we are social apes as well. However we are more developed in our darker side to cause misery and destruction. Our history proves we seldom live by our better mores we tend to live by our baser instinctics. Chimps do make war and do all the same things as us Humans. They are just not a sophisticated.
I would guess in my online rant as far as my first posting goes it would sound like Im a religious zealot. I am Christian but I love science . I have seen how some people tend to minimize science in both camps. However Apes or any other life form on this planet do not have an idea like Humans of a god and even if they did they still do not know how to use the sophisticated ways to do the things we do to each other. Only God gave us this power. I do love the science to see how god put us humans to gather and to tell this story.
To imagine the first true humans, creating an entire consiouus universe in their heads is to ask 'how did they survive the shock'. If the changes are a continuing process and not just 118, or more, pure random events, what is in store for us? Are future changes seen as a threat or a salvation? What a great plea for utmost tollerance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the author could elaborate upon the notion of "accelerated regions"; it seems to contradict the dogma of evolutionary theory which states that mutations are random. Perhaps "highly selected-for gene regions" might suffice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the author could elaborate upon the notion of "accelerated regions"; it seems to contradict the evolutionary dogma that mutations are random. Would "highly selected-for gene group" suffice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question that immediately arose in my mind was "Why?". Why did this large change happen in so little time and to no other species? OK, I'm trying to find out why we are so 'special'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAcclerated regions might mean areas that feel more pressure either in the use of limited resources or some outside stimultory forces that would cause evoultion to speed up. A example would be a sudden drought in a region that once had trees . This would force the local animals to either mover or change to the new order. After a while these changes might be benificial and so would be passed on. Thus that would be a reion of accelrated devolpment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe meant -genetic- regions, not geographical. An environment does not directly effect mutations in DNA beyond forcing its inhabitants to adapt to new circumstances. The process of selection is what causes long-term changes to emerge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is interesting here is that very specific sequences of DNA in the human genome have been selectively mutated over very short periods of time. This event has yet to be witnessed in the history of any other species on the planet, including our relatives among the apes. The question is 'why us?'.
...maybe, because, evolution is a irreversible process...once species set apart, the only way to continue is with the acumulation of more changes in a steady-state form. If we have the ADN of the Australopithecus this will be evident, but we do not so the aproach to this point is with studies like the Dr. Pollard,,,congratulations and go ahead !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswfitz1964 makes some good points. I would add to the list: a strong inclination for self-destruction and a totally overdeveloped sense of self-importance. Individual humans can be the most wonderful animals that write books, compose symphonies, paint, build, sing, make music, care for each other and other animals and so on. Mankind as a collective though, I consider the worst cancer in the most literal sense: uncontrolled runaway division that kills the host (Earth). Less intelligent species' population growth is limited by intricate feed back mechanisms to prevent selfdestructive overbreeding. What went wrong with the most intelligent animal? What genetic mutation(s) prevent us from behaving rationally and stop this destructive excessive overbreeding? We humans ARE the plague, the disproportionately expanding species that kills everything else, and so eventually ourselves. God forbid man ever manages to colonize other planets. Man can only fulfull its enormous potential (and survive) if human behavior would finally become truly rational.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswfitz1964 makes some good points. I would add to the list: a strong inclination for self-destruction and a totally overdeveloped sense of self-importance. Individual humans can be the most wonderful animals that write books, compose symphonies, paint, build, sing, make music, care for each other and other animals and so on. Mankind as a collective though, I consider the worst cancer in the most literal sense: uncontrolled runaway division that kills the host (Earth). Less intelligent species' population growth is limited by intricate feed back mechanisms to prevent selfdestructive overbreeding. What went wrong with the most intelligent animal? What genetic mutation(s) prevent us from behaving rationally and stop this destructive excessive overbreeding? We humans ARE the plague, the disproportionately expanding species that kills everything else, and so eventually ourselves. God forbid man ever manages to colonize other planets. Man can only fulfull its enormous potential (and survive) if human behavior would finally become truly rational.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes but pressures can force certain parts of DNA to change this pressure could act on groups of individuals more distortional then as a species at large. An example loss of habitat is a localized event putting pressure on individuals to survive. The advantages of having localized pressure on a small group of individuals could produce a mutation that helps a entire species. That mutation could be as extreme as to walk upright (as a example) so the early human can beat the crap out of a lion. Changes would more than likely be small but have a large impact on survival on a group. The early human has no idea of the mutations in his or her own DNA only he/she can walk up right & survives and produces off spring. Selective pressures cause the changes in DNA. These mutations could be like islands of small groups of individuals. Early men as well as apes tend to live in small groups. Each group or groups would feel selective pressures in different ways and genetic drift would occur differently with each group. Ultimately if each group could interbreed and the mutations were beneficial it would spread to the whole group. Example netathertals vanishing in favor of modern man but the pressures did not produce benifical chages or Neatherals were absorbe by modern man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know its a idea .
According to my humble understanding, it is the biological/chemical differences that allow your social differences to exist. With the sort of information that is being unearthed about exact mechanisms of human evolution and human behavior, I think there is little reason to believe that humans spontaneously developed the ability to grasp abstractions. The amazing thing about this research is that it's explaining how our brains changed over time to become what they are today. Not trying to be rude, but anthropology seems to be to be a study of the effects of these biological changes, and has very little to do with the meaning of this research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe recent discoveries by researchers from around the world who are examining the human genome of specific genetic influences, along with the presence and assistance of proteins and amino acids which appear to regulate human brain size, hold great promise for correcting and solving genetic conditions which result in mental diseases. We can all appreciate the benefits of these discoveries, and applaud those whose dedicated study has uncovered them, but when we wish to address what makes us truly human, in my view, we must look beyond these scientific studies, no matter how astonishing their results might be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur individual lives, to some degree, are a mirror of the development of all life on this planet. Our beginnings are microscopic; our progression as a fetus has many of the characteristics and developmental qualities of life forms that existed prior to our own species; our development from a child into adulthood is marked by sequential growth through physiological stages and levels of consciousness, as well as growth in sophistication with the accumulation of knowledge and experience.
There are both daunting limitations and extraordinary possibilities inherent in the evolutionary process, and in spite of recognizable genetic predispositions, humans have demonstrated time and again the ability to overcome these limitations and to take advantage of the possibilities that result from our adaptive nature. As yet, no one has demonstrated the ability to overcome the laws of physics, of course, but determined effort and persistence have enabled humanity to survive and thrive through some of the most daunting challenges that life on this planet can conjure, and since the future is impossible to predict with absolute certainty, I would say the jury is still out.
At the very heart of human life, beyond the rhetoric of all our religions, our science, and our philosophies, once we are mature enough to permit it, we discover within us an elusive and ineffable element in the human equation, which I prefer to call the human spirit. Difficult to quantify, and frequently referred to by a variety of other names, it consistently alters the equations of life in ways not anticipated by evolution, genetics, or physics.
While some scientists take the position that our brain alone is responsible for the existence of our subjective experience of consciousness, after many years of searching and studying, it seems much more likely to me, that our intact and nominally functional brain, utilizing its astounding cognitive capacities, provides us access to a dynamic and creative non-physical or spiritual life, allowing us to participate in an experiential awareness, which is facilitated by our cognitive processes, but whose source and nature are not yet fully understood.
It would be a very narrow definition of what it means to be human to reduce us to the biological and cognitive processes that support consciousness. Our lives and our subjective experience of the world is dependent on a functional body coordinated by a functional brain, but what animates the organic material in our bodies and brainswhat is essential to being humancannot be demonstrated by science. The scientific studies which have produced descriptions of genetic predisposition and the examinations of the differences between the human genome and all others, while fascinating and wondrous to contemplate as explanatory science, only describe what distinguishes us in biological terms, and has produced some very helpful correlations between our development and growth as human beings, as well as illuminating influences on behaviors and personalities.
It is my view that while humanity has clearly evolved and expanded from a distinctly natural and highly complex biological history, and continues to be influenced and regulated to a large degree by instinctive and unconscious drives, the profound changes brought about by the evolution of our human brain have resulted in the development and manifestation of an array of extraordinary cognitive functions, which have provided us with the means to acknowledge a connection to the ineffable. We are no longer simply a conglomeration of organic systems. We are part of a dynamic synergy of life in the phenomenal universe, and our richly-textured and superbly conscious experience of life allows us to interact with and transcend the limitations of life in its many biological forms.
Access to these abilities has provided human beings with a powerful subjective experience of existence which is unmistakably unique on earth. The consequences of our genetic evolution in the form of changes, mutations, and adaptations in our genome, while they may have been selected as a result of their survival advantage, have often had unintended results, and may be progressing along lines that are still not discernible to us, but which are consistent with providing us with an enhanced survivability. From the very first inklings of human consciousness in our ancient ancestors, and throughout every human culture and society, humans have alluded to and searched endlessly for a connection to the spirit of life. It is not detectable through any scientific experiment or proof. No logic or reasoning can clarify it. No technology can reveal it, but without it, nothing lives. Life is the spirit and our breath is one of its many manifestations in this world.
Through the ineffable connections and astonishing complexity of human life, we experience the spirit and know the miracle of that breath, and THAT is what makes us human.
Just remember this increased human brain may be a maladaptive evolutionary dead end, once we destroy ourselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEverything is good with all of this except that one science still believes it can design and execute first rate exclusivist experiments unlike any others imaginable to test for, identify and study the so called 'elusive spirit particle' whatever that may mean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...Painting is out for a half slice of tea at the center of a super massive black hole!
This may be a little off topic but I've read that the human genome contains evidence of a genetic bottleneck due to a population reduction to as few as 2000 individuals. This population bottleneck may have been the result of the eruption of the super-volcano Toba 70000 years ago.Does the chimpanzee genome show a similar bottleneck? It seems human,chimp and other ape populations would have been similarly impacted by such an eruption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisquite an intriguing article, I've long suspected the vital role genes play in evolutionary development. although i've yet to locate an article that gives significant insights into the roles genes play on our personalities, minor studies have been done with twins however i'd love to see someone take it a step further and perhaps better understand the role of genetics with regards to our synaptic pathways or various neural connections.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know, I would be very interested in learning the results of that inquiry. Do you happen to know what region the 2000 survivors were located in, or whether they were scattered small groups?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would think north africa or the middle east. Here is a link to a wiki article that touches on the topic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck
Isn�t science beautyful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one of the best articles I've read on molecular genetics. Easy to get but not shallow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing struck me immediately: all changes in HAR1 in humans were from A,T -> C, G. The article does not mention that, but it's obvious that there was some major mutation that strongly favored such substitution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes us human article: 6 million years too short to mutate 15 million DNA base-pairs. Mutation rate would have to be trillions and trillions of times/ second. Preposterous. Monkey's uncle theory needs some work DAN
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe Katherine Pollard has found evidence for the arguement of "Punctuated Evolution". The fact this HAR1 sequence remained very much preserved for hundreds of millions of years in the ancestors of ourselves and our Chimpanzee cousins. This sequence then has evolved ramidly since we diverged from each other, suggests that even though the orthodox doctrine of slow progresive evolution is still correct, but large leaps in evolutionary change do occur aswel. What an exciting find!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdan: "Preposterous. Monkey's uncle theory needs some work DAN"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen be a man DAN. Step up to the plate and submit your objections to be peer reviewed. Or contact Dr. Pollard and her colleagues with your calculations. Otherwise, stow it. It's one thing to sound off with scoffingly snide 'monkey's uncle'-style remarks on a web forum, quite another to put your money where your mouth is and take on the science face-to-face.
What if there is an integral ancient revealed book where the information digged out and presented by Katherine Pollard
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismakes certain parts that are thought to be obscure and therefore neglected of that revelation clearly understandable. And as such confirming this revelations' verse stating: "We shall show them our evidences on the horizons and in themselves until it becomes clear unto them that this revelation is true..." Just what if ? Ofcourse it is not a what if to me it is as real as it can get.
Why so coy, oghanim? Call a spade a spade and say straight out that you refer to the Bible as your authority. Problem is, however "real as it can get" it might be to you, the Bible's authority is scriptural and not scientific, and even then is limited to the Christian faith. So unless you can present evidence which can be scientifically validated for what you say, then you're wasting your own time making such claims on a science website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe issue is fascinating. The genome structure is so fundamental that one needs to look for the cause of change or mutation. Environment is one and changes pass down the family line once established in the parent/grandparent reproductive systems. Then, what of the epi-genome theory? This implies an overiding control of genes due to chemical changes that possibly produce changes in the protein that a gene produces, some of which can be very damaging. There is also the factor of a fundamental design for the difference between species that is inherent in the epi-genome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is much yet to learn.
What if we take a chimp cell, replace the chimp's HAR1, FOXP2, ... by the human version, and place the cell in the womb of a chimp? Then we will make a human or chimp or ??? I think the experiment is highly doable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbefore reading the article,a few days ago i was wondering that i am more in dept to apes than to my parents!!we have got 99% of our genome from those species after all!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow on earth it is possible that we are humans and they are just apes just because of that 1% ?!!
Wow I never knew viruses implanted-DNA is actually passed within us to our offspring; giving us a record of the past struggles with certain viruses from our ancestors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow I never knew viruses’ implanted-DNA is actually passed within us to our offspring; giving us a record of the past struggles with certain viruses from our ancestors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe adaptation to be able to digest lactose is pretty interesting as well since I'm allergic to so many things: gluten, soy, legumes, peanuts ... except for milk and in the article they were saying that adaptation is pretty recent, only in the thousands of years, I find it kind of strange that I'm not allergic to it but extremely grateful as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes us human? The character of interaction with surrounding world makes us human. This peculiar interaction became possible because of the development and use of the wordy language, which gave the animal man (Nietzsche) the possibility to create and accumulate the past. Ms. Pollard is absolutely correct when she writes: Most of what distinguishes human language from vocal communication in other species, however, comes not from physical means but cognitive ability, which is often correlated with brain size. But human brain volume has more than tripled since the chimp-human ancestor a growth spurt that genetics researchers have only begun to unravel. The human brain turned out disproportionately bigger in relation to the size of body as the result of the dynamic interaction of organism with external environment and provided ability of a priori thinking thanks to accumulated past. This concept is the core of my recently published book: The Human Nature and the Sense of History (? @8@>40 G5;>25:0 8 A<KA; 8AB>@88?. >A:20. 740B5;LAB2> ?=86=K9 4>< 81@>:>< ?, 2009, 445 AB@.).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes us human? The character of interaction with surrounding world makes us human. This peculiar interaction became possible because of the development and use of the wordy language, which gave the animal “man” (Nietzsche) the possibility to create and “accumulate” the past. Ms. Pollard is absolutely correct when she writes: “Most of what distinguishes human language from vocal communication in other species, however, comes not from physical means but cognitive ability, which is often correlated with brain size. But human brain volume has more than tripled since the chimp-human ancestor – a growth spurt that genetics researchers have only begun to unravel.” The human brain turned out disproportionately bigger in relation to the size of body as the result of the dynamic interaction of organism with external environment and provided ability of a priori thinking thanks to accumulated past. This concept is the core of my recently published book: “The Human Nature and the Sense of History” («Природа человека и смысл истории». Москва. Издательство «Книжный дом “Либроком”», 2009, 445 стр.).
The real face value of Africa universal figure complex building heart center temple house body of manhood in WWW.UMUEKEMPI.COM is what makes Backward race culture and value a sex symbol image of perfection in good sense of image and likeness of glorious spiritual being of Breeder of human race.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChimps engage in tribal wars all the time, actively practicing murder, theft, and even cannibalism. It goes without say that rape occurs whenever the chance arises - but this can hardly be seen as crime in the wilderness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we have so little faith in humanity? Our intelligence is the only thing that has keeps us from what we deem "immoral". Of course, our intelligence is also what has allowed us to commit such acts to such large degrees, but it's primal instinct that drives us towards those behaviors in the first place. Our consciousness - that which separates us from the rest of the primates - is how we constructed our ideals: rights, civilization, progress.
Although over 99 percent of our genome is identical to that of primates, this deals strictly with our DNA template. As organisms increase in complexity, we've observed larger incorporation of alternative splicing in the processing of genes. In other words, although the template is 99 percent identical, the ways in which these genes are translated vary much more between humans and primates.
Furthermore, I'd argue that humans, more than any other species, are influenced by environmental factors in development. We are not locked or destined by our genomes. Science has yet to discover the mechanisms of our minds - this incredibly versatile, complex, mystifying phenomena that we define ourselves by.
It's silly to be humbled by such a statistic of our genomes - though it may not be as evident on the molecular level of our DNA, it is clearly evident that we're vastly superior to chimps.
Even when this "new discovery" was "new" it wasn't really THAT amazing if you've actually been to college and taken majors bio1.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for all this "only we humans blah blah blah" stuff, you people are morons, the uneducated ill conceived brainless children of simpletons. The animal kingdom is full of both extremely complex, and not so complex animals that "lie, cheat, steal, murder, and wage war". These are not traits exhibited only by us, we're also not the only, or by any means "first" creature on this planet to use biological warfare to further ourselves or chemistry to sustain.
Even knowing this article is two years old, I'm willing to bet over half of you still believe the same garbage.
I like pudding too!! :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYo Adailey79,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't help but respond to your petty and quite frankly idiotic comment. Though im not defending the comments you were criticizing, I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that, out of the very people you just decided to go ahead and feel superior too, you are the most small minded. Without contributing any knowledge or ideas to the conversation, you decided to put another person down; a person whom though misspelling many of their words, and spewing religious nonsense in a journal with scientific in the name, is at least expressing some use of their frontal lobes. They are attempting to communicate to us their newly formulated thoughts and ideas, not necessarily to feel superior, but to have someone, one who knows more, one who has thought all these things through to provide an intelligent, guiding, comment and help them continue to define their view of the world. Yet, all they get is your dull self , dropping in and providing a useless putdown. A putdown that is incredibly illogical in its own sense. How does one's spelling merit the quality of their thoughts and ideas? If someone misplaced a couple of letters, is it logical to disregard everything they have just said? Also, how shitty must your life be for you to need this little put down to someone with an undisclosed name and location to feel better? How much must you be put down per day, in the real world, that the only place you can feel superior to someone in intelligence is in virtuality; somewhere where the only information you have on the subject of your comment is the image you must have in your mind created based only on how they spell. You are a prime example of the self-centeredness that drives humanity to war, misdistribution of resources, overpopulation, global warming, and pretty much all the other major (come to think of it, minor as well) problems our world faces. And these problems are not because we are to smart for our own good, but rather because we are not intelligent enough yet to overpower our basic, now obsolete, parts of the brain that, long ago, helped us survive and evolve into what we are today. For example, racism, sexism, and any other prejudice is just a result of the small groups in which humans evolved, and the in-group/out-group psychology is ingrained into our brains. Yet, those with enough frontal lobe activity come to understand that common sense tells us its illogical to hate and kill those who seem to differ from us, if we would like to live and prosper to our full potential as a species.
I can't help but respond to your petty and quite frankly idiotic comment. Though im not defending the comments you were criticizing, I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that, out of the very people you just decided to go ahead and feel superior too, you are the most small minded. Without contributing any knowledge or ideas to the conversation, you decided to put another person down; a person whom though misspelling many of their words, and spewing religious nonsense in a journal with scientific in the name, is at least expressing some use of their frontal lobes. They are attempting to communicate to us their newly formulated thoughts and ideas, not necessarily to feel superior, but to have someone, one who knows more, one who has thought all these things through to provide an intelligent, guiding, comment and help them continue to define their view of the world. Yet, all they get is your dull self , dropping in and providing a useless putdown. A putdown that is incredibly illogical in its own sense. How does one's spelling merit the quality of their thoughts and ideas? If someone misplaced a couple of letters, is it logical to disregard everything they have just said? Also, how shitty must your life be for you to need this little put down to someone with an undisclosed name and location to feel better? How much must you be put down per day, in the real world, that the only place you can feel superior to someone in intelligence is in virtuality; somewhere where the only information you have on the subject of your comment is the image you must have in your mind created based only on how they spell. You are a prime example of the self-centeredness that drives humanity to war, misdistribution of resources, overpopulation, global warming, and pretty much all the other major (come to think of it, minor as well) problems our world faces. And these problems are not because we are to smart for our own good, but rather because we are not intelligent enough yet to overpower our basic, now obsolete, parts of the brain that, long ago, helped us survive and evolve into what we are today. For example, racism, sexism, and any other prejudice is just a result of the small groups in which humans evolved, and the in-group/out-group psychology is ingrained into our brains. Yet, those with enough frontal lobe activity come to understand that common sense tells us its illogical to hate and kill those who seem to differ from us, if we would like to live and prosper to our full potential as a species.
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