Slashdot Mirror


Why Men Don't Have Sensory Whiskers and Spiny Genitals

sciencehabit writes "Most male mammals wield a penis covered with spines made of keratin, the same material that forms fingernails, to sweep out competitors' sperm and irritate a female into ovulating. Even chimpanzees, our closest relatives, have penile spines. So why don't men? A new study suggests that this feature disappeared due to a chunk of DNA that went missing after our evolutionary divergence from chimps. The researchers have identified another DNA deletion that may have contributed to humans' bigger brains."

1 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We didn't evolve from Chimps... by Intron · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...we evolved from a common ancestor. That Ancestor is not a chimp but something completely different in terms of biological classification. That's like saying A GPS device evolved form a defibrillator.

    Since nobody suggested we evolved from chimps what is your point? The article says "divergence from" which just implies a common ancestor.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.