Chimps \'r not us (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Monday, June 25, 2012, 01:08 (4536 days ago)
edited by unknown, Monday, June 25, 2012, 01:38
New blog on a great book.-http://notachimp.blogspot.ca/-And another website entry in the opposite direction. It makes it sound as if animals are smarter than humans.-http://phys.org/news/2012-06-line-blurs-animal-monkeys-math.html
Chimps \'r not us
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, June 25, 2012, 18:20 (4535 days ago) @ David Turell
New blog on a great book. > > http://notachimp.blogspot.ca/ > > And another website entry in the opposite direction. It makes it sound as if animals are smarter than humans. > > http://phys.org/news/2012-06-line-blurs-animal-monkeys-math.html-I'm with dhw on animals. Corvus birds (crow family) are able to count, and captive or not, some primates have displayed the ability to create new meanings with words, which irrefutably demonstrates intelligence.-It all points to the fact that consciousness is something we all share... even if *we* seem to go leaps and bounds beyond.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Chimps \'r not us
by David Turell , Thursday, July 19, 2012, 21:09 (4511 days ago) @ David Turell
Using tools:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/07/18/for-chimps-tool-choice-is-a-weighty-matter/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_20120719
Chimps \'r not us
by David Turell , Friday, November 09, 2012, 04:51 (4399 days ago) @ David Turell
DNA may look alike but the regulation is diffferent:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121106201124.htm
Chimps \'r not us
by David Turell , Friday, September 27, 2013, 16:11 (4076 days ago) @ David Turell
"The foramen magnum in humans is centrally positioned under the braincase because the head sits atop the upright spine in bipedal postures. In contrast, the foramen magnum is located further toward the back of the skull in chimpanzees and most other mammals, as the spine is positioned more behind the head in four-legged postures." (my bold)-The foramin magnum is a large opening at the base of the skull allowing the spine to connect with the brain. Another proof that we are not apes, even if our bodies are similar.-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130926111903.htm
Chimps \'r not us
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 18:11 (3554 days ago) @ David Turell
Chimps have about 98% the same genes as us taken just on a total score. But they are not arranged the same way and all the modifiers of gene expression result in an overall difference that is estimated by various authors to be around 80%. Now a new study looking at newly found miRNAs, the very short modifiers (24 bases), finds that 56.7% are unique to humans. Lots of evolutionary change in the genome produced humans it seems:-"In the early days of the miRNA field, there was an emphasis on identifying miRNAs that are conserved across organisms: e.g., let-7 first described in 2000 (63, 64). Nonetheless, species-specific miRNAs (e.g., cel-lsy-6 in C. elegans) (62) have also been described and characterized as have been miRNAs that are present only in one or a few species of the same genus. Therefore, enforcing an organism-conservation requirement during miRNA searches is bound to limit the number of potential miRNAs that can be discovered, leaving organism- and lineage-specific miRNAs undiscovered (53-56). In our effort to further characterize the human miRNA repertoire, we liberated ourselves from the conservation requirement: not surprisingly then, 56.7% of our newly discovered miRNAs are human-specific whereas 94.4% are primate- specific (Table 2). Considering that many miRNA studies to date have focused on seeking and analyzing conserved miRNAs, it is not surprising that, of the human miRNAs in miRBase, we found a larger fraction to be conserved in rodents and invertebrates (Table 2). These findings strongly suggest the possibility of a wide-ranging species-specific miRNA-ome that has yet to be characterized. Indeed, it is reasonable to expect that at least some of these novel primate-specific miRNAs participate in unexplored aspects of regulatory processes that cannot be captured by the currently available mouse disease models. Thus, not only could these newly discovered miRNAs provide new molecular insights but they could also help us define novel biomarkers for tissue or disease states."-http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/02/18/1420955112.long
Chimps 'r not us
by David Turell , Monday, June 26, 2017, 23:57 (2708 days ago) @ David Turell
Our muscles are not the same. They are stronger but we have more travel endurance:
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-chimpanzee-super-strength-human-muscle.html
"But now a research team reports that contrary to this belief, chimp muscles' maximum dynamic force and power output is just about 1.35 times higher than human muscle of similar size, a difference they call "modest" compared with historical, popular accounts of chimp "super strength," being many times stronger than humans.
"Further, says biomechanist Brian Umberger, an expert in musculoskeletal biomechanics in kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the researchers found that this modest performance advantage for chimps was not due to stronger muscle fibers, but rather the different mix of muscle fibers found in chimpanzees compared to humans.
***
"He explains that muscle fiber comes in two general types, fast-twitch, fast and powerful but fatigue quickly, and slow-twitch, which are slower and less powerful but with good endurance. "We found that within fiber types, chimp and human muscle fibers were actually very similar. However, we also found that chimps have about twice as many fast-twitch fibers as humans," he notes.
***
"When all factors were integrated, chimp muscle produces about 1.35 times more dynamics force and power than human muscle.
"Umberger says the advantage for chimps in dynamic strength and power comes from the global characteristics of whole muscles, rather than the intrinsic properties of the cells those muscles are made of. "The flip side is that humans, with a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers, are adapted for endurance, such as long-distance travel, at the expense of dynamic strength and power. When we compared chimps and humans to muscle fiber type data for other species we found that humans are the outlier, suggesting that selection for long distance, over-ground travel may have been important early in the evolution of our musculoskeletal system."
"When all factors were integrated, chimp muscle produces about 1.35 times more dynamics force and power than human muscle.
"Umberger says the advantage for chimps in dynamic strength and power comes from the global characteristics of whole muscles, rather than the intrinsic properties of the cells those muscles are made of. "The flip side is that humans, with a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers, are adapted for endurance, such as long-distance travel, at the expense of dynamic strength and power. When we compared chimps and humans to muscle fiber type data for other species we found that humans are the outlier, suggesting that selection for long distance, over-ground travel may have been important early in the evolution of our musculoskeletal system."
Comment: this muscle adaptation fits with the development of bipedalism. It is a necessary change along with the skeletal changes. Evolution has to coordinate all of this, and this is what advanced planning looks like.