Hobbies And Interests
Dr. Jane Goodall
In the 1960s, British wildlife biologist, anthropologist and primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall studied chimpanzee social life in Africa. Her work resulted in the greatest contribution to human's understanding of their cousin the chimpanzee. She observed and documented chimpanzee behavior revealing that apes have emotional, social, cultural and even intellectual lives, much like their human relatives.
Similar DNA
Many scientists agree there is up to a 99 percent similarity in human and chimpanzee DNA. Humans and chimps each have roughly 3 billion base units of DNA in their genomes -- a difference of only 1.2 percent when compared in this way. In 2007, an analysis of the rhesus monkey genome, conducted by an international consortium of more than 170 scientists indicated that humans and macaques share about 93 percent of their DNA.
Time of Divergence
Paleoanthropologists continue to hone in on the exact time and place where the ancestors of humans and chimpanzees parted company. Fossil evidence and a variety of studies point to a divergence occurring between about 6 and 4 million years ago.
What About Orangutans?
In 2009, research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science suggested humans might share a common ancestor with orangutans. These researchers claimed fossil evidence points to a closer relationship between humans and orangutans than between humans and chimpanzees. The first blueprint of the orangutan genetic code confirmed that orangutans share 97 per cent of their DNA with people. More importantly, say researchers, a small portion of orangutan DNA is a closer match than chimpanzee DNA to human DNA.