[Note: This post ended being the first of a series of four.
Part Two: The Mystery of the Missing Chromosomes, Continued: An Update From Your Preening Blogger
Part Three: Four Days of Fusion Chromosome Freak-Out
Part Four: And Finally the Hounding Duck Can Rest]
There’s something fascinating about our chromosomes. We have 23 pairs. Chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest living relatives, have 24. If you come to these facts cold, you might think this represented an existential crisis for evolutionary biologists. If we do indeed descend from a common ancestor with great apes, then our ancestors must have lost a pair after our lineage branched off, some six million years ago. How on Earth could we just give up an entire chromosome.
