“To paraphrase scientists: “Chimps, Apes and Humans are more distinct than we thought, and probably more distinct from the common predecessor”
To paraphrase God: “Hello! McFly!””
—I’m not sure how that’s a paraphrase of what the scientists are saying. The article is actually saying that the common ancestor was likely more human than thought.
It used to be thought that the common ancestor would be essentially a chimp anatomically, and that it was humans that did virtually all the changing while chimps changed little since the common ancestor. But the fossil evidence indicates that humans changed less than thought while chimps changed a bit more than thought, and so the common ancestor is as close anatomically to humans as it is to chimps.