Free Republic

In past experiments, researchers have examined the same human gene's effect on the brain sizes of mice and ferrets. The brains did grow larger — but in those experiments, the team used an over-expression of the gene, rather than the typical human levels. So the effect could have been due to another hidden factor rather than the gene itself. Plus, crucially, mice and ferrets aren't primates — so they can't tell us how the introduction of the gene may have changed the brains of our modern ancestors. Primates are particularly interesting to researchers because — before now, they didn't know...

Making monkeys more smart and human-like, scientists have used gene-editing to insert human brain gene in a monkey. For the first time, a team of Chinese scientists made use of gene-editing techniques to make monkey brains more human-like. By the end, the monkeys, rhesus macaques, got smarter and had superior memories as compared to the unaltered monkeys. Researchers edited the human version of a gene known as ‘MCPH1’ into the macaques. The gene made the monkeys’ brain develop along a more human-like timeline. The gene-hacked monkeys showed better reaction times and improved short-term memories in comparison to their unaltered peers,...