[extropy-chat] Scientists may have found the 'human gene'

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

>From the Houston Chronicle: Touching off a scientific furor, researchers say
they may have discovered the mutation that caused the earliest humans to
branch off from their apelike ancestors -- a gene that led to smaller,
weaker jaws and, ultimately, bigger brains.
Smaller jaws would have fundamentally changed the structure of the skull,
they contend, by eliminating thick muscles that worked like bungee cords to
anchor a huge jaw to the crown of the head. The change would have allowed
the cranium to grow larger and led to the development of a bigger brain
capable of tool-making and language.
The mutation is reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, not by
anthropologists, but by a team of biologists and plastic surgeons at the
University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The
report provoked strong reactions throughout the hotly contested field of
human origins with one scientist declaring it "counter to the fundamentals
of evolution" and another pronouncing it "super."
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