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THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2002

Research being published in Nature ties two genetic mutations to the ability for humans to speak.

The team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, doesn't claim to identify all the factors for language development. They said the changes occurred around 200,000 years ago and spread rapidly throughout just as modern humans were emerging.

The research centered on a gene that all mammals have called FOXP2. According to the team, the human version of FOXP2 differs by only three molecules, out of 715, from the mice version and by two from the chimpanzee version.

Get the Story:
Gene Mutations Linked to Language Development (The Washington Post 8/15)
Gene explains dumb apes (Nature 8/15)
Language Gene Is Traced to Emergence of Humans (The New York Times 8/15)
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Relevant Links:
Nature - http://www.nature.com