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We’re missing parts of DNA that code for spiky penises and that inhibit brain development. It took sometime, 6 million years or so, but definitely worth the wait.
“In a paper published Thursday in Nature, the Stanford University researchers show the differences between humans and our nearest relative, the chimpanzee, are the result of DNA sequences lost since our divergence from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.
Women of the world will be particularly grateful that among the ditched DNA is the penile spine enhancer, which gives chimpanzees spiky-spined penises.”
Evolution in action. Thank goodness we did take the love-dart route either.
“Kingsley [an author of the paper] says they are continuing to work through the lost sequences to identify links with other anatomical differences such as sweat glands, walking upright, s-shaped spines and skin changes.
He says the two sequences in DNA highlighted in the paper were lost sometime between when humans and chimps split from each other 6 million years ago and before humans and Neanderthals diverged about 600,000 years ago
“Both of the losses are also lost in the Neanderthal,” says Kingsley.
“The Neanderthal brain was already big and there is a lot of interest in whether Neanderthal and humans interbred – the loss of the penile spine was the anatomical change that would allow interbreeding.”
Kingsley says although the modern genome is evolving, our understanding of evolution will also change the way the genome continues to evolve.”
I do like looking at the CBC technology and science section, every once and awhile they have some neat off the wall type articles like this one.
“Biologists at the University of Cincinnati used a laser ablation technique to remove part or all of the millimetre-long spines, which are too small to remove using a scalpel.
They then allowed the shaved males to mate to see what role the spines played in copulation.”
Apparently, male fruit flies need sharp protrusions on their reproductive organs to make coupling more successful. This is not particularly outlandish ( ducks rank high) and the whole process is called ‘traumatic insemination‘. Looks squicky, but it gets the job done.
“Those that got the full laser treatment, however, had only a 20 per cent chance of successfully mating with a female. When in competition with unshaven males for available females, the shaven males almost always lost.”
So now you know. :)
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