Research Suggests Apes and Humans Separated By a Single Gene

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers believe that they have found the definitive difference between humans and other primates, and they think that the difference all comes down to a single gene."

Now this really should get people to think about..

[3seas]

... what GMO food they eat....

Re:Uh huh.

[war4peace]

After watching human beings for over 3 decades, that gene is rare. Very rare.

Re:Uplift

[H0p313ss]

You guys who constantly judge the actions of Christians of many years ago would do well to see how much worse the non-Christians were.

Right, I keep forgetting, crimes against humanity are justified if you can find a worse one that you can blame on someone else, my mistake.

Re:The missing link between humans and republicans

[ebcdic]

From the point of view of the world outside America, Democrats are the missing link between humans and Republicans.

Re:Uh huh.

[pitchpipe]

yeah, blacks

No. Racists: If ever there was a more ignorant, backward way of thinking than racism, it'd be done by something that lived in a slime mold at the bottom of a swamp. But then again, I think that I've just insulted things that live in slime molds.

Re:The gene position, of course, is

[budgenator]

Gorillas such as Koko [wikipedia.org], when taught sign language are scary smart, even without the gene.

Re:Uh huh.

[Mal-2]

I have a group of friends in which we frequently call each other "monkeys" -- but there is no racism whatsoever to it. If you see someone imitating someone else (even if it's because it's a good idea), they're a monkey. If they're making lots of noise and gesticulating wildly -- monkey. Repeating something useless out of habit -- monkey. Climbing over furniture or other objects not meant to be traversed -- monkey. Getting on the stage via the scaffolding instead of the stairs (sometimes it's far easier to come on from the back or other unintended route than to wade through people and gear) -- monkey. If anyone asks, we always say "everyone is a monkey part of the time", and if asked about racism we say "who cares, in 500 years, EVERYONE will be brown". One of our group became known as "monkey boy" for his habit of climbing poles or other structures to try to spot people in a crowded room, rather than trying to hunt them down in a crowded venue. (I don't blame him, he's short.)

So no, calling someone a monkey can be completely non-racial.

Re:Uh huh.

[TheRaven64]

The whole black people are monkeys thing is purely a US idiom. In the rest of the English-speaking world, there isn't that connotation and it's fairly common to call people (of any phenotype) monkeys with no racist overtones. That's part of the reason why the celebrity apes thing seemed so weird to the rest of us. It's not even universal in the USA. A lot of people called GWB a chimp, but there's no indication that anyone thought that he was black...