Are We Really 99% Chimp?

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- Jeff Straathof
- Mark
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- Today I Found Out
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MinuteEarth provides an energetic and entertaining view of trends in earth’s environment – in just a few minutes!

Created by Henry Reich

Script by: Ferris Jabr
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References:

Cohen, Jon. Relative Differences: The Myth of 1%. Science 29 June 2007. Vol. 316 no. 5833 p. 1836
DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5833.1836

Mahler, Kimberly L. Sequence divergence of Mus spretus and Mus musculus across a skin cancer susceptibility locus. BMC Genomics. 2008; 9: 626. Published online 2008 Dec 23. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-626

The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome. Nature 437, 69-87 (1 September 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature04072

Image Credits: Algerian mouse: Lien Dejager
Chihuahua, St. Bernard and House Mouse: Courtesy Shutterstock

[lalakuma]

I love how the chimp looks pretty realistic and the human is just a stick figure

[neeneko]

Saying humans are 99% chimp is a bit like saying Linux is 99% BSD.  Looking at just the assembly will find a lot of similarities, but the higher level expressions have drifted considerably.

[Banana]

Well I'm clearly 50% banana, are you calling me a liar?

[walkerpartin]

Thank you for this! In college I had a anthropology teacher trying to tell me I had more in common with an chimp than a human raised across the ocean due to this whole 99% DNA match statement. I knew it sounded like BS at the time but the lady had her Doctorate and every one just accepted the statement. I knew the whole story wasn't there thanks for explaining.

[Azavmax]

When did we split from our common banana ancestors?

[pupoflas]

if cucumber are 96% water, if you step on 2 cucumber you're 192% jesus

[birb]

"Lets eat grandpa" no no It's "Lets eat, grandpa"



Use punctuation. Save lives.

[daysfan]

50% banana? Now that's just bananas

[AnimilesYT]

So this is like, I am exactly the same as you, if you ignore the parts that are not the same..

[BitcoinMotorist]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this video!  I've been saying that we are not 99% chimp for years.  It's like taking two books, saying they use 99% the same words and coming to the conclusion that they are 99% alike.

[outletman]

"Our ancestors are 100% history." Did I pass history class...?

[sysghost]

50% banana???
<looks down on my giant banana...>

Naaaah... it's big, but it aint 50%

;)

[MinuteEarth]

After viewing the video do you think that the close relatedness of chimps and humans is overhyped? And if so, by whom - the press? Scientists? Teachers?

[clankbo]

In my experience when a "science fact" seems really counter-intuitive, a lot of the time the science behind it is poorly conducted or the findings are misinterpreted.

[MrDan]

Thanks this was super interesting! I've always thought it sounded strange with 99%, It's been one of those 1000's of facts so many of us 'know' but have't got around searching up

[azr]

Am I cannibal that I love to eat something that share 50% of my DNA?

[heatherhorsecat]

Thanks for pointing out all the data they're excluding from that %! It really makes a difference.

[TheJoker-hwib]

I was once a Great Ape... Until this little katana wielding bastard cut off MY TAIL!

[Merthalophor]

Aha, so summed up - we're almost the same, except for the parts where we aren't.

[lclyd]

So basically we are 98% similar if we reject the In that case, I can make the case for my phone to be 90+% similar to my ham sandwich by removing enough differences