Why the damn Apes/Mice don't talk

[Jonbo298]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A few key changes in a single gene help explain why people can talk while mice and apes cannot, researchers said on Wednesday.

The gene, called FOXP2, seems to be involved in the face and jaw movements necessary for speech, the researchers in Germany and Britain said.

What is surprising is that the gene is so similar in animals ranging from mice to orangutans to chimpanzees, with a relatively small change having emerged--just as modern humans did--between 120,000 and 200,000 years ago, the researchers report in this week's online issue of the journal Nature.

"It is not the gene that made language possible," geneticist Wolfgang Enard of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, stressed in a telephone interview.

He said it is probably one of many genes involved in speech and language, which are complex abilities.

But the gene is clearly important. Research last year found that people who lack two normal copies of the gene have considerable difficulty speaking. They not only make mistakes in grammar but cannot always articulate words clearly.

"If you have (only) one functional copy of the gene, as a human, you have problems with language and facial movements," Enard said.

Enard, Svante Paabo and colleagues at Max-Planck and Oxford University in Britain looked at the gene in mice, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans.

It is a highly conserved gene, meaning it has changed little in the 70 million years of evolution separating mice from people. But Enard said it still had "changed a little bit with two amino acid changes on the human lineage."

Genes are strings of code that determine the arrangement of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Proteins are the "workhorses" that underlie biological processes.

A slight amino acid change would alter the resulting protein and, as is the case with FOXP2, the consequences can be enormous.

Apes lack the structures to speak, even if they had language--which is hotly debated. Yet humans, who share more than 98% of their genes with chimps, are defined by their ability to speak and use language.

In a mouse, which does not seem to use facial expressions, the gene is probably involved in a lot of functions, Enard said. FOXP2 is expressed, meaning the gene is active, in all tissues that have been examined.

"We have not so many genes and many things that have to be done in the body," Enard said. "Most of the time a single gene will have several functions. FOXP2 is not an exception."

Enard said geneticists will be taking a long, hard look at FOXP2 now.

"The really hard part will be to find out what human FOXP2 does differently from other FOXP2s," he said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...eech_apes_dc_1

We know why they won't talk. Now, lets mutate and get them to talk!

Parrots talk

Look at Alex, the world's smartest bird for example...

[Jason1]

I saw that Alex bird on TV once...He can say stuff, and pick out a color, and pick out a key...that pretty much sums up his abilities from what I can tell...and even those he isnt exactly good at...but yea I dont really think thats why monkeys cant talk, I just dont think they have the brains...they can make monkey noises, and that might be their language...or something...

[Happydude]

meh...thats cool...i guess...

Originally posted by Jason1
I saw that Alex bird on TV once...He can say stuff, and pick out a color, and pick out a key...that pretty much sums up his abilities from what I can tell...and even those he isnt exactly good at...but yea I dont really think thats why monkeys cant talk, I just dont think they have the brains...they can make monkey noises, and that might be their language...or something...

He can add, subtract, (I think multiple and divide too), knows difference in colors, shapes, etc. Actually trying to teach him to read now.

[Joeiss]

Fascinating. I wonder when the apes will evolve and learn how to talk like us. MAn..... that would be some trippy stuff talking to an big ass gorrilla.

[-apu-]

Originally posted by Jason1
I saw that Alex bird on TV once...He can say stuff, and pick out a color, and pick out a key...that pretty much sums up his abilities from what I can tell...and even those he isnt exactly good at...but yea I dont really think thats why monkeys cant talk, I just dont think they have the brains...they can make monkey noises, and that might be their language...or something...

thats not true, monkeys are actually smart....most of them have actually been proven to be smarter than happydude

[Angrist]

Why don´t they give those genes to dolphins? They could perhaps talk to us.

[Happydude]

Originally posted by -apu-


thats not true, monkeys are actually smart....most of them have actually been proven to be smarter than happydude

right...thats called flaming...and i did take that offensively

[GameMaster]

The smart animals are the ones who don't talk. They've seen what has become of humans and they don't want the same to become of their species.