http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-language-protein-differs-males-females.html
Here are details of a fascinating piece of work that showed that FOXP2 protein was elevated in the brains of baby male rats, compared to females, and resulted in more effective ultrasonic distress calls from males to their mother, resulting in her preferential care and retrieval of them to the nest. When researchers manipulated the levels of FOXP2 protein in female pup brains the situation was reversed. This work builds on a previous small study in humans which suggested that girls have higher levels of FOXP2 protein that boys in parts of their cortex associated with speech which might help to explain relative language delay in boys.
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?
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
NOT A CHIMP goes Japanese!
Just received today a complimentary copy of NOT A CHIMP in its Japanese edition with the translation done by Kotaro Suzuki of Niigata University. In Japan it is titled "We Are Not Chimpanzees"!