• Question: how much of our dna is shared with chimps or apes

    Asked by to Rebecca, Heather, Ditte, Dave, Ben on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ben White

      Ben White answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Forget how similar we are to chimps and apes (~96%), we share 50% of our gene with bananas!

      Here’s a video that will hopefully explain why we’re so similar.

    • Photo: Rebecca Gladstone

      Rebecca Gladstone answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Your question also got me thinking about how much of our DNA is shared with other humans so I looked it up and apparently we are all 99.6% to 99.9% similar! (or 0.1% to 0.4% different)

    • Photo: Dave Baker

      Dave Baker answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Ben, I think you’re more like 70% banana, surely? Only joking. It is amazing that wthere will be things that a banana does that a human cell does too like cell division for instance.

    • Photo: Ditte Hedegaard

      Ditte Hedegaard answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Ben is right, we share about 96% of or DNA with chimps and apes, this means that only about 800 of our 20,000 genes differs between humans and apes. The 12,000 genes we have in common main code for things, which are essential for both of us like the function of our heart, our nerves ect. and it is the 800 genes that make us look and behave so different.

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