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Author Name: BoingBoing
This story was originally published on Boingboing.net. [1]
License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.[2]


How humans lost our tails

2021-09-22 00:00:00

I find it unfair that humans don't have tails but monkeys do. More than 60 million years ago, the earliest primates did have tails that helped them not fall out of trees. Most primates still have tails but people and other apes lost them along the way. All we have is a pathetic little coccyx. What the hell happened to our tails? Biologists at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine have now identified the genetic mutation that shortchanged us. To test their hypothesis that a spontaneous mutation in a gene called TBXT was responsible, they genetically engineered mice with that mutation. "When these embryos developed, many of the animals failed to develop a tail," writes Carl Zimmer in the New York Times. "Others only grew a short one." Still, while the scientists have uncovered how we lost our tails, the why remains a mystery.

From the New York Times:
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