Posted on 03/10/2011 1:50:12 PM PST by Cardhu
Genetic comparison with chimps suggests that losing chunks of DNA including one associated with penis spines and facial whiskers played a crucial role in making us human.
Scientists have identified a clutch of subtle genetic changes that have shaped our minds and bodies into the unique form that sets humans apart from chimpanzees and the rest of the animal kingdom.
The work by researchers in the US represents a landmark in a search that has occupied philosophers and scientists for millennia and one that goes to the heart of understanding what it means to be human.
The findings offer up the humbling conclusion that the secret of human success may owe more to what we lost along the path of evolution, rather than anything we gained.
When the human genome was first deciphered more than a decade ago, some scientists expected to find extra genes that explained why humans had an intellectual edge over their closest living relatives and other species. But since diverging from chimpanzees around seven million years ago, it turns out that our human ancestors lost several hundred snippets of DNA, which together led to traits that are uniquely human, the researchers claim.
In ditching these chunks of DNA, our ancient ancestors lost facial whiskers and short, tactile spines on their penises. The latter development is thought to have paved the way for more intimate sex and monogamous relationships. The loss of other DNA may have been crucial in allowing humans to grow larger brains.
Intriguingly, hardly any of the lost DNA was from genes, which make the proteins that are the building blocks of life. Instead, the missing DNA came from areas of the genome that regulate where and when certain genes are active.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
While a human and a chimp may be 97 percent identical. A human and a pine tree may perhaps be 90 percent identical?
Author must be talking about "Holder's People".
There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture
out of such a trifling investment of fact.
~Mark Twain.
lmao...
Good one Larry!!
I think the Apostle Paul said it first, roughly the same. Romans 7:15
Don’t be ridiculous. How would lawyers ever stand up?
LOL
Little Willie sez that he needs his spine back, please.
So that explains the stupidity of libtards. They are not missing the specific section of DNA, and the gene that inhibits the growth of brain cells is not blocked.
We're hydraulic.
"The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins speculated in 2006 that the loss of the bone in humans, when it is present in our nearest related species the chimpanzee, is a result of sexual selection by females looking for signs of good health in prospective mates. The reliance of the human penis solely on hydraulic means to achieve a rigid state makes it particularly vulnerable to blood pressure variation. Poor erectile function betrays not only physical states such as diabetes and neurological disorders but mental states such as stress and depression.[6]
It has also been speculated that the loss of the bone in humans, when it is present in our nearest related species the chimpanzee, is because humans evolved a mating system in which the male tended to accompany a particular female all the time to attempt to ensure paternity of her children which allows for frequent matings of short duration.
Observation suggests that primates with a baculum only infrequently encounter females, but engage in longer periods of copulation which the baculum makes possible, thereby maximizing their chances of fathering the female's offspring. For humans, it is almost impossible to tell when the female is fertile so frequent matings would be necessary to ensure paternity."
And to think that we support these inane studies with our tax dollars. Is it any surprise that we are broke?
I have the list!
(It’s composed of nothing but zotted bloggers.)
I imagine they also made the “second date” a much greater possibility.
A charter member of the Steepledick tribe.
I think Eaker has it but the Mom won’t let him take it out of the house by himself.......:o)
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