• Question: Why are we who we are? Our nose, mouth etc. Is it to do with different monkeys years ago?

    Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Humans and monkeys we see today evolved from a common ancestor and so we do have similar physical features. We are who we are thanks to a combination of genetics and epigenetics. We inherit our genes from our parents which control a lot of things about our physical appearance and who we are. More recently it has been shown that environmental factors (where we live, what we eat, how often do we exercise?) can actually influence how these genes are expressed. If you take two identical twins, they have inherited the same genes from their parents, but as they grow older and experience different environments they tend to change and look less alike.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Humans have very slowly developed over time. You have the features that you have because they’re the ones that made your ancestors better at surviving than the others. If you go back far enough yes, your ancestors were apes.
      It’s your genes that control what you look like. You get half from each parent, which is why you usually have features of both.
      Over time, humans have averaged out so we all look roughly the same. In the future people have predicted that we’ll all have a similar skin colour because we travel so much and are much more likely to meet and have children with people of different ethnicities.

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