No. Humans and chimpanzees both descend from a shared, now extinct ancestor that lived roughly 8 to 6 million years ago, and each lineage has evolved separately since.
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DNA comparisons, protein tests and shared anatomy all point the same way: humans sit inside the great apes, and chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives.
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No one knows for certain. The leading idea is that losing fur helped early humans shed heat by sweating, while a parasite-based explanation is the main alternative.
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Researchers think long childhoods evolved mainly as time to learn complex skills and explore, supported by costly family care. Several explanations overlap, and none is settled as the only one.
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It proposes that women who stopped reproducing and helped feed grandchildren left more descendants, favoring long post-fertile lives. Specialists debate whether menopause itself was selected.
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No one knows for certain. Several overlapping hypotheses involve climate, food carrying, energy use, cooling and terrain, and the old savanna story has been revised.
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Richard Wrangham proposes that cooking made food easier to digest and richer in energy, freeing resources for bigger brains. The timing and the role of cooking remain debated.
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Human babies fit tightly through a rigid birth canal shaped by competing evolutionary pressures. Researchers still debate how much the old 'obstetrical dilemma' explains it.
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Several mutations keep the lactase gene active in adulthood. They spread after animal domestication, though why they spread so strongly in Europe is still debated.
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