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    Almost Chimpanzee: Redrawing the Lines That Separate Us from Them
    Unavailable
    Almost Chimpanzee: Redrawing the Lines That Separate Us from Them
    Unavailable
    Almost Chimpanzee: Redrawing the Lines That Separate Us from Them
    Ebook548 pages8 hours

    Almost Chimpanzee: Redrawing the Lines That Separate Us from Them

    By Jon Cohen

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The captivating story of how a band of scientists has redrawn the genetic and behavioral lines that separate humans from our nearest cousins

    In the fall of 2005, a band of researchers cracked the code of the chimpanzee genome and provided a startling new window into the differences between humans and our closest primate cousins. For the past several years, acclaimed Science reporter Jon Cohen has been following the DNA hunt, as well as eye-opening new studies in ape communication, human evolution, disease, diet, and more.

    In Almost Chimpanzee, Cohen invites us on a captivating scientific journey, taking us behind the scenes in cutting-edge genetics labs, rain forests in Uganda, sanctuaries in Iowa, experimental enclaves in Japan, even the Detroit Zoo. Along the way, he ferries fresh chimp sperm for a time-sensitive analysis, gets greeted by pant-hoots and chimp feces, and investigates an audacious attempt to breed a humanzee. Cohen offers a fresh and often frankly humorous insider's tour of the latest research, which promises to lead to everything from insights about the unique ways our bodies work to shedding light on stubborn human-only problems, ranging from infertility and asthma to speech disorders.

    And in the end, Cohen explains why it's time to move on from Jane Goodall's plea that we focus on how the two species are alike and turns to examining why our differences matter in vital ways—for understanding humans and for increasing the chances to save the endangered chimpanzee.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 14, 2010
    ISBN9781429958011
    Unavailable
    Almost Chimpanzee: Redrawing the Lines That Separate Us from Them
    Author

    Jon Cohen

    JON COHEN is the author of Max Lukeman and the Beautiful Stranger and The Man in the Window. A recipient of an NEA Fellowship for creative writing, he is also the cowriter of the film Minority Report, directed by Stephen Spielberg.

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    Reviews for Almost Chimpanzee

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    • 5/5
      Excellent exploration of the current state of human / chimpanzee / bonobo understanding and research. The book is divided into three sections: Blood, Brains, and Bodies. The Blood section explores the primate family tree, including where modern and fossil humans are, in relation to modern chimpanzees and bonobos (humans are approximately equidistant from each). But there is also a more detailed discussion of how hybrids "work" in the larger evolutionary framework. The discussion starts with ligers, the hybrid of a lion father and tiger mother. And they are not just a product of zoos and private breeders - they occur more frequently in the wild than one might think. From here, the author discusses how genetic flow (as the author comments, "scientists' way of saying doing the nasty") from one species to another influences the genes of the offspring and their adaptability to new ecological niches. And that hybridization in the distant past explains some of the puzzling similarities and differences between humans and our closest primate cousins. The section then goes on for several chapters about similarities and differences between humans and these apes with respect to diseases. This is the part of the book that makes one uneasy, because it describes how animals are used in this part of research, and it is not pretty. But much has helped provide basic research into what may or may not be useful in treating hepatitis and AIDS, for instance. Part 2, Brains, is about the cognitive similarities and differences between humans and chimps and bonobos. The author gives an overview of the various attempts to teach these apes human language, whether audible, signed, or via symbol manipulation. Parts worked, parts didn't. And what did not work tells us as much about what is unique about humans as about how a chimp "thinks." There is some fairly detailed discussion of FOXP2 genes, and how they appear to cause particular effects in the humans that have defective versions, and how this gene is expressed in many animals, including chimps. It has to do with how humans recognize and use language. The chapters are fairly technical, and I skimmed through the "hard parts". Physical brain architecture is the subject of one entire chapter - parts of the brain, brain size, amount of folding, the kinds of cells within the brain, the connections between parts, and timing of brain growth. Some of these relates to Alzheimer's research, among other things. But it also had a couple sentences that resonated with a recent Senate race. It noted an experiment done with mouse brains related to the study of human brains. Part 3 - Bodies - has a chapter devoted to the human upright stance. This pulled in some more of the research that I had read about in "Born to Run" about how human gait differs from chimp gait, and what it might mean, including the human's loss of body hair, sweat glands, and even skin color. There is also a telling graphic about the size of a baby's head, for orang, chimp, gorilla, and human vs. the size of the birth canal. "Chimp birth is very fast, and it doesn't look tramatic at all" wrote one researcher. And the apes do not appear to miscarry with near the frequency of humans. The author concludes with the state of chimp populations world wide, both wild and captive. Many recent laws have outlawed or strongly hampered medical use of captive chimps, which has had the result of fewer chimps being bred. I found the book to be a fascinating peek at these apes, and what they show us about what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be ape.