Epigenetics and Development

BioScience feature, current issue

Understanding how epigenetics works at the molecular level can be mind-boggling.

Tabitha M. Powledge (tam@nasw.org) is a freelance science writer based near Washington, DC.

Decades ago, researchers figured out that chimpanzees and people share some 99 percent of their DNA sequences, an estimate confirmed recently by the chimp genome project. Counting inversions and deletions, the differences approach 4 percent, but still are similar enough to pose this question: If our DNA is so much like that of our closest evolutionary relatives, why do we look and act so different?

Read more at: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.3