Word: complexing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...just a superficial resemblance. Chimps, especially, not only look like us, they also share with us some human-like behaviors. They make and use tools and teach those skills to their offspring. They prey on other animals and occasionally murder each other. They have complex social hierarchies and some aspects of what anthropologists consider culture. They can't form words, but they can learn to communicate via sign language and symbols and to perform complex cognitive tasks. Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level...
Until recently, there was no way to unravel these crucial differences. Exactly what gives us advantages like complex brains and the ability to walk upright--and certain disadvantages, including susceptibility to a particular type of malaria, AIDS and Alzheimer's, that don't seem to afflict chimps--remained a mystery...
...easy one. Like any complex organic molecule, DNA degrades over time, and bones that lie in the ground for thousands of years become badly contaminated with the DNA of bacteria and fungi. Anyone who handles the fossils can also leave human DNA behind. After probing the remains of about 60 different Neanderthals out of the 400 or so known, Pääbo and his team found only two with viable material. Moreover, he estimates, only about 6% of the genetic material his team extracts from the bones turns out to be Neanderthal...
...know so far is preliminary. "We're interested in traits that really distance us from other organisms," says Wisconsin's Carroll, "such as susceptibility to diseases, big brains, speech, walking upright, opposable thumbs. Based on the biology of other organisms, we have to believe that those are very complex traits. The development of form, the increase in brain size, took place over a long period of time, maybe 50,000 generations. It's a pretty complicated genetic recipe...
...Generally, they agree that unfair or badly communicated management decisions create a workforce rife with anxiety, anger and rumormongering. "I would be very cautious about anyone viewing one factor as a key to what ails all organizations," warns Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade. "Life and organizational life are a complex network, very multicausal...