By Jared Diamond
Greater than ninety eight percentage of human genes are shared with species of chimpanzee. The 'third' chimpanzee is guy. Jared Diamond surveys out life-cycle, tradition, sexuality and damaging urges either in the direction of ourselves and the planet to discover the ways that we're uniquely human but nonetheless stimulated via our animal origins.
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Extra resources for The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: Evolution and Human Life
Example text
Already by the Second Century AD, the Greek physician Galen deduced our approximate place in Nature correctly when he dissected various animals and found that a monkey was 'most similar to man in viscera, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves and in the form of bones'. It is also easy to place us within the primates, among which we are obviously more similar to apes than to monkeys. To name only one of the most visible signs, monkeys sport tails, which we lack along with apes. It is also clear that gibbons, with their small size and very long arms, are the most distinctive apes, and that orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans are all more closely related to each other than any of them is to gibbons.
DNA is made up of two complementary and extremely long chains, each made up of four types of small molecules whose sequence within the chain carries all the genetic information transmitted from parents to offspring. A quick method of measuring changes in DNA structure is to mix the DNA from two species, then to measure by how many degrees of temperature the melting point of the mixed (hybrid) DNA is reduced below the melting point of pure DNA from a single species. Hence the method is generally referred to as DNA hybridization.
Chimps living on the equator in central Zaire rate the name 'pygmy chimps' because they are on average slightly smaller (and have more slender builds and longer legs) than the widespread 'common chimps' ranging across Africa just north of the equator. However, with the increased knowledge of chimp behaviour acquired in recent years, it has become clear that the modest anatomical differences between pygmy and common chimps mask considerable differences in reproductive biology. Unlike common chimps but like ourselves, pygmy chimps assume a wide variety of positions for copulation, including face-to-face; copulation can be initiated by either sex, not just by the male; females are sexually receptive for much of the month, not just for a briefer period in mid-month; and there are strong bonds among females or between males and females, not just among males.