Are we humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so minuscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? If “chimps are us” should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arm’s length. Are humans cognitively unique after all?
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Mutations in single gene may have shaped human cerebral cortex
In my chapter BRAIN-BUILDERS in NOT A CHIMP I discuss the research, and criticism of that research, that suggests that several genes closely involved in cell division, are inordinately responsible for the great growth, relative to other primates, of the human cerebral cortex. here is a report of a third gene that seems to have a strong effect in the same area. From an analysis of Turkish and Pakistani families with a history of very severe truncation in brain development, a gene NDE1 was found to be implicated. This is involved in the behaviour of the centrasome - where chromosomes line up to reassemble after cell division in the nucleus.
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