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Science

Chimpanzee Genome Sequenced 51

Posted by michael from the in-laws dept.
dharash writes "Nature reports 'Researchers today released a draft version of the genetic sequence of our closest relative, the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes..The differences between the chimp's genetic code and ours should reveal what makes us human...' Click here for the entire article."
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Chimpanzee Genome Sequenced More

Chimpanzee Genome Sequenced

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  • I already figured it out!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The differences between the chimp's genetic code and ours should reveal what makes us human...

    Here's a hint! We're not monkeys!

  • Assuming... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @09:58AM (#7689124)
    Assuming, of course, that the differences between the two genome sequences are greater than the difference between two animals in the same species.

  • Great - this will be useful (Score:5, Funny)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @10:13AM (#7689230) Homepage Journal
    cd slashtroll
    cvs rdiff -r chimp -r human genome | patch -p1 ./make
  • Once you start monkeying with the chimp genome, it is only a matter of time before General Thade or Caesar comes along to pound the will of the Lawgiver into us.

  • Great (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @10:21AM (#7689283) Homepage
    I am wondering how genetics is evolving. After fully understanding how genes work, the next step will be to simulate what each gene will do. After some time, an advanced computer will be able to grow virtual specimens given a genetic code. Like an advanced VMware..

    As they're virtual, they don't need to really pee, sleep, or eat. . As they're virtual, their number is limited Imagine what you could do with a million of those virtual monkeys, seated in front of virtual typewriters, in an infinite ammount of time.

    • Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ashran ( 107876 ) * on Thursday December 11, 2003 @10:59AM (#7689631) Homepage
      There is one fundamental problem in simulating the whole genome and see what it grows.
      For every atom you simulate you need like 10000 times the atoms to store the information about it.
      This means the physical space alone needed to store a full human in memory would be 10000 times bigger than the human :/

      Lets see if quantum computers can help us here, because right now we can only store ~1 bit per atom, and we'd need atleast a few bits to describe what kind of atom it is and a few more bits to describe their position, states, charges, relation to nearby atoms etc. Superpositions might help us here, giving us more than 1 bit per atom.

      This is just discussing the storage aspect, if that should be realtime you'd need a SHITLOAD of processors working on that.

  • Funded by Michael Jackson (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @10:24AM (#7689302)
    This research has been funded by Michael Jackson, after his recent trouble. If they can genetically modify "Bubbles" to look like the "Home Alone"-era MacCauley Culkin, Michael might be able to avoid future legal trouble.

    • Re:Funded by Michael Jackson (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @12:36PM (#7690575)
      totally offtopic, but...

      regarding Bubbles: When chimps get older they get aggressive and really can't be handled by people anymore (unless you're Steve Irwin or any other of those nuts on Animal Planet). Jackson gave up Bubbles a while back, and the chimp is currently living at a facility in the north end of the San Fernando Valley, along with Geoffrey the giraffe (of Toys R Us commercial fame).

      I had the quite unique experience of visiting this place last year, seeing where all the famous animal actors live. Bubbles was quite threatening, but the giraffe was loads of fun...

  • Should reveal what makes us human? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:32AM (#7689950)
    I doubt this will even reveal what makes a chimp a chimp.

    People expect too much from genome sequencing. This is a dead genome, not an expressive genome configured with epigenetic states in a runtime environment as would exist in a living cell. This is a good first step, but a genome sequence is barely a start and inferring high-level characteristics from such a sequence is ridiculous.
    • The goal here I think is to be able to eliminate sections of the genome when looking for specific genes. For example if you are looking for the gene that causes chimps to grow coarse hair on their bodies you can eliminate all parts of the sequence that are identical to humans. (most humans I should say.)
      • I'm not a molecular biologist, but I don't think this is true.

        It's possible that we all have the gene for growing fur; it's just not switched on in human cells because of some other gene somewhere else, which may not be switched on because of some other gene...

        So we'd find some gene that eventually turns on fur, but may also make our arms grow longer and our brains shrink (well, smaller than most people's).

        Or it might be a simple expressive gene. It's not a sure thing, either way.

        • Whether coarse hair is caused by a separate gene in chimps or humans and chimps both have it but it is suppressed by a different gene in humans is just the kind of thing that can now be learned with this data.

          Humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor. The waters will be muddied by parallel mutations but it is a safe bet that the changes to the human genome that enabled the huge increase in cranial capacity will not be resident in chimp dna. Taking out all sequences shared by chimps and humans a
      • For example if you are looking for the gene that causes chimps to grow coarse hair on their bodies you can eliminate all parts of the sequence that are identical to humans.

        Actually, it's quite possible that we have the gene that causes chimps to grow coarse hair on their bodies, but that we have another gene that represses the expression of coarse hair (or perhaps that we don't have the gene which turns on the expression of coarse hair).

  • Finally, the proof can be discovered that humans were engineered from the indiginous life on this planet by an alien superrace that will surely soon return to dominate us all!!!!

    ....adjusting tinfoil hat now...

    • Finally, the proof can be discovered that humans were engineered from the indiginous life on this planet by an alien superrace that will surely soon return to dominate us all!!!!
      Ever saw The Truman Show? Ok, you don't have to admit it, but perhaps those aliens didn't create us to dominate, but just as entertainment.
    • Danikite! Shirt! Humanity Uplifted itself!
  • I wonder what this implies about the way the genetic code is really organized. A friend suggested that 1% figure is a bit misleading beacuse it may involve parts of the genetic code that are more like a "high level language" not the "firmware".
  • In the November 27 2003 issue of Nature, the jounral also reported on a UN meeting of the GRASP (Great Apes Survival Project) in Paris. Apprantly, there is the very real possibility of every great ape in the wild becoming extinct in less than 100 years. Faced with this, I think it might be a wise idea to start to work on the orang-utan's seqeunce..
  • I guess they aren't monkeying around with this project.
  • Anyone got the BT for the data?

  • Closest relative? (Score:3, Informative)

    by booch ( 4157 ) <slashdot2010NO@SPAMcraigbuchek.com> on Thursday December 11, 2003 @03:56PM (#7692595) Homepage
    I thought it was well-established that bonobos [bonobo.org] are the species most closely related to humans.

    • But aren't bonobos chimps? Also, I believe that it's not really established yet ust how close chimps are to humans. Estimates range from 94% to 99%. This should settle it once the comparisons are done.

    • Re:Closest relative? (Score:3, Informative)

      by SEE ( 7681 )
      Bonobos and the common chimp, as best we can tell, are both humanity's closest relative, having diverged from each other after their common ancestors and those of humans had diverged. That is, there is a common bonobo-chimp ancestor, and a common bonobo-chimp-human ancestor, but no common bonobo-human or chimp-human ancestor that is not also an ancestor of the third.

      Similarly, humans, common chimpanzees, and bonobo chimpanzees are all more closely related to each other than any is to the gorilla. Humans,

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