Chimps lead evolutionary race

摘要

Humans are generally believed to be more highly 'evolved' than our chimpanzee cousins. But in at least one sense that isn't true, say geneticists who have hunted for the hallmarks of natural selection in our respective genomes — and found more of them in chimps. The discovery suggests that, since our evolutionary paths diverged 6 million years ago, greater numbers of chimpanzee genes have been shaped by 'positive selection', in which natural selection favours beneficial mutations.