In fact, the typical human protein has accumulated just one unique change since chimps and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.
2. Center for Biomolecualr Science and Engineering
This image shows the 34% of the mouse genome that maps to identical sequence in the human genome. The matching locations are jumbled, indicating rearrangements of the two genomes since their last common ancestor, approximately 75 million years before present.
Nearly 99 percent alike in genetic makeup, chimpanzees and humans might be even more similar were it not for what researchers call "lifestyle" changes in the 6 million years that separate us from a common ancestor.
We now have a nearly complete catalog of the genetic changes that occurred during the evolution of the modern human and chimpanzee species from our common ancestor.
The smaller number of genes does make it easier to imagine apes and humans having a common ancestor 5 or 10 million years ago, since the smaller genome can tolerate a higher mutation rate without error catastrophe. But the number of genes may still be too large." "The paper describes changes that have shaped human and chimpanzee species since the split from our common ancestor, and hints at what makes us uniquely human.
Put a human and a chimpanzee side by side, and it seems obvious which lineage has changed the most since the two diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago.
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