Gene Regulation And The Difference Between Human Beings And Chimpanzees

Link: Gene Regulation And The Difference Between Human Beings And Chimpanzees

When the DNA sequences of Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes were sequenced, the difference between the sequences of coding genes was smaller than expected based on the phenotypic differences between both species. If not the coding genes, then what is responsible for these dissimilarities?

How have humans and mice changed since we diverged about 75 million years ago from a small, furry common ancestor? Apart from the obvious, of course.

Link: How have humans and mice changed since we diverged about 75 million years ago from a small, furry common ancestor? Apart from the obvious, of course.

As a starting point, it’s worth noting there’s nothing magical about a genome sequence – it’s merely a very long string of letters representing the sequence of nucleotides in an organism’s DNA.

But for evolutionary biologists, this string of letters is a treasure-trove of information about a species’ evolutionary history. The recent development of efficient and affordable tools to sequence and compare genomes of different species – reflected in the rapidly accumulating data-bank of “comparative genomics” – has allowed scientists to tap into this amazing resource on a scale scarcely imaginable just a few years ago.

Wits Professor Christopher Henshilwood presents on roots of modern humans at Origins

Link: Wits Professor Christopher Henshilwood presents on roots of modern humans at Origins

We send messages to one another all the time – in the way we dress, the accessories we choose, our body language, the sounds we make. Symbols are key to what sets us apart from other species as modern human beings, and an important clue to figuring out where we originated… and this could very well have been where we call home today – Southern Africa.

On Tuesday, October 25, the Origins Centre was host to a presentation that delved into the mysteries surrounding the origins of behaviourally modern human beings.