Dec. 25 is one day when many people make an effort to be with their families, and some might even take time to remember those less fortunate than themselves. So in that spirit, in this week's column we're going to think about our closest relatives, ones who are far less fortunate than us and who face complete extinction in, at best, 50 years.
A study earlier this year found that these close relatives, chimpanzees, share 99.4 percent of their genes with us. This means that humans and chimpanzees (and bonobo chimpanzees) are more similar to each other than they are to the other great apes -- gorillas and orangutans. Chimps are close enough relatives that they should be allowed around the table this Christmas lunchtime, metaphorically speaking: They should be taken care of like other members of our family.
Derek Wildman (and could there be a better name for someone researching human/chimp evolution?) led the group that carried out the work, at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit. The team concluded that chimps should be reclassified into the Homo genus. We are Homo sapiens, so chimps would become Homo troglodytes (they are currently Pan troglodytes).