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Behold the Talking Chimp
Zeroing in on the genetic basis of language
The Scientist 2004, 18(11):32
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From our common ancestor with chimpanzees, it took only six million years, give or take, to develop the ability to speak. And, as we now know, the vast majority of our genetic material has been inherited unchanged. Language, and whatever else separates us from chimpanzees, has its origins in alterations to no more than about 1.5% of the nucleotides in the genome,[1]
a pretty neat trick, when you consider how handy talking can be.
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