Chimps: Even Closer Than Previously Thought

First Humans: Time of Origin Pinned Down:

" The lineages of humans and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, diverged from one another about 4.1 million years ago, according to a new estimate that is said to be far more precise than previous ranges for this critical evolutionary moment.

However, the claim is a bad match with previous estimates based on fossil evidence and other genetic work.

Asger Hobolth of North Carolina State University and his colleagues arrived at the new estimate of ' the time we became human,' or the time in the past when descendents of the human-chimp ancestor split into human and chimp, by statistically comparing DNA from four regions of the human, chimp and gorilla genomes."