Science-Ask a Geneticist

After reading about the comparison between humans and chimps, I realized how the two of us are so similiar, yet, very different. Chimps have 96 chromosomes and we have 46. There is really no similarity with the number of genes and the number of chromosomes in the human chimp case. The only reason that chimps have twice as many chromosomes as we do is because one human chromosome is the size of two chimp chromosomes. So, it's almost like we do have the same amount of chromosomes, even though we don't. Also, the sections of the two genomes that code for genes for chimps and humans are 98.8% the same and only 1.2% different. So, if our gene and chromosome amount is so similiar, why are humans and chimps so different? Well, we are very different from chimps because of the very different amount of protein made in our brains compared to our liver or our heart. The proteins are similiar, but the different amount of protein being made in the brain could be the reason to why humans and chimps are so very different from eachother.