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Thu 11 Nov 2009Talking through the genes
TWO SMALL chemical changes – that may be all that was needed to give early humans the power to talk. The complexity of human language is something that sets us apart from our nearest relative, the chimpanzee. And yet the trigger that allowed this evolutionary gift may have come down to just two amino-acid changes in a single protein, writes DICK AHLSTROM
New research that explains how this might have happened is published this morning in the journal Nature. These subtle chemical changes altered the way that a particular protein works inside the body, with the capacity for speech the ultimate result.
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