Skip to comments.Scientists Reveal Single Gene Is the Difference Between Humans and Apes
Posted on 11/22/2012 12:40:23 PM PST by Fractal Trader
What makes us human? Some say that it is the development of language, though others argue that animals have language as well. Some say that it is our ability to use tools, though many animals are able to use rocks and other objects as primitive tools. Some say that it is our ability to see death coming.
Now, researchers believe that they have found the definitive difference between humans and other primates, and they think that the difference all comes down to a single gene.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland attribute the split of humanity from apes to the gene miR-941. They say that the gene played an integral role in human development and contributed to humans' ability to use tools and learn languages.
Most of the time, when one species diverges from another, that difference occurs because of gene mutations, duplications, or deletions. However, this gene is believed to have emerged, fully functional, from "junk DNA" in a breathtakingly short amount of evolutionary time.
Humans share 96 percent of their genes with other primates. Of the 4 percent that humans alone have, a significant portion of it has been widely labeled "junk DNA". Researchers have since that "junk DNA" is functional, even though it does not code. This is the first time that a gene that humans and other primates do not share has been shown to actually have a specific function within the body.
Researchers came to this conclusion after comparing the human genome to 11 other species of mammals, including gorillas, chimpanzees, mice, and rats. These comparisons were made so that the geneticists could find the difference between them.
In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers say that the gene emerged sometime between six and one million years ago. The gene is highly active in the regions of the brain that control language learning and decision making, indicating that it may play a significant role in the higher brain functions that make humans, well, human.
I’m at the point where I think a lot of scientists are full of crap. One gene difference doesn’t make sense. We differ person to person.
Apes and humans also have a different amount of chromosomes which also makes a difference. Obviously a pretty big difference!
Humans, animals and plants contain the same biological building blocks such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen et al, but that doesn’t mean we are related. It just goes to show that an enormous variety of life forms can be made from just a few ingredients.
1/4 of a gene in some
Which means one of two things...
1. either that using genetic differences as a way of judging differences between species or within a specie is totally worthless, or...
2. they haven’t looked at the genes in sufficient details to observe all the differences
In other words, if by looking at genes you have a hard time differentiating a chimpanzee from an Einstein or Sophia Loren, then it’s a useless tool for predicting what someone will end up being. Sort of like saying monkeys and humans both have two legs, so there must be no difference between them?
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
“Junk” DNA is simply the data segment. Humans are apes with an upgrade. Most of them, anyway.
Add it to the ape and make a human. Then we’ll talk.
Anything i said here,,,,
Humans wear Wranglers. Apes wear Levis.
Are you saying human is Ape Vs 1.01 or Ape Second Edition :)
Some studies possibly indicate a suggestion of a connection between may be related and associated with but not always so furthr clarification of pending questions might be needed.
Others are of the opinion this may be the exception to the general rule that variation occurs at times in an unpredictable way but as yet they’re not sure without further studies.
Is it Gene Shalit?
Everybody gets the app. Not everyone has a hard drive that can handle the software.
Ok the next time we need eye bleach, this is it.
Dang!!! I love genetics.
Does that mean apes are descended from humans?
God works in mysterious ways...very mysterious.
Now there is a post I’ll bet some DUmper puts up over there on that site as ‘proof’ FReepers are knuckle dragging racists. Not that I really give a hoot what those clowns think but just sayin’. Flame away folks!
You will never get me to believe there’s only one gene difference between those sweeties and an ape, but I want proof, I think they should take their genes off so we can look.
Yes. First they devolved into democrats, then they grew hair and learned to live in the trees, make funny noises and scream for no apparent reason.
This is why I don’t eat bananas in public, they’ll steal them right out of your hand.
Whatever that gene does, it wasn’t fully expressed in a couple of friends of mine. I used to think they just had more Neanderthal than most Europeans.
this “human” ape gene works a lot better in some people these days than others...
More correctly.....a monkey was your uncle (actually great x 10^4 or 5 uncle).
Very nice, but how many horses did you see?
The “scientists” monkeyed around with the data!
And a lot of them get CPUs that were binned out for low speed operation.
heh heh heh
Thumbs up on your opinion.
Evolutionist cannot find the missing links in the fossil record so this represents a plausible escape mechanism; to wit, only one slip in the DNA reproduction and there you have it goo to zoo to you.
This is after they spent some good amount of time trying to find a working set of mutations that would get from the precursor of man/ape to both men and apes without running through dead-end or fatal genetic sequences.
See, it’s easy to say you have 96% the same parts. For a rough analogy, you could say that Microsoft Windows and Mac OS share almost all of the same base coding structures (they differ only in how they are combined), but if you tried to get from one to another by changing a few lines of code at a time, you wouldn’t get programs that worked with the intermediate steps.
So, since they couldn’t find workable mutations that would connect the species, they instead looked for something in the “non-working genes” . See, if all of your “changes” are in things that don’t matter, they don’t have to “work”. Just one day, by magic, these non-working genes become “working”, and “abra-cadabra”, random natural evolution is saved from it’s inconvenient truths.
Opposable thumbs up at that!
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