by Felipe Mora-Bermúdez
We share between 94 - 99% of our DNA with our chimpanzee cousins, but how do our brains compare? In this video, Felipe Mora-Bermúdez explains what he has learned by studying brain stem cells from humans and chimps.
Read his full publication on this work in the journal eLife!
Felipe is a postdoc in the lab of Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.
Related resources
• Watch a short video, data collected by Felipe, which shows human and chimp brain stem cells dividing.
• What does it mean to be human? (Smithsonian)
• DNA: Comparing humans and chimps (American Museum of Natural History)
• Read more on brain stem cell divisions in a perspectives article by Felipe and Wieland Huttner.
Video Credits: • Chimpanzee photo by Cyril Ruoso, Minden/National Geographic.
• “Le Penseur” Sculpture by Auguste Rodin, photo by Andrew Horne/Wikipedia.
• Photo of Felipe by Leonie von Löwenthal.
• Video written, narrated, and drawn by Felipe Mora-Bermúdez. Edited and produced by Lisa Dennison.