" there is considerable interest in knowing when we diverged from our closest relative among animal species , " said sudhir kumar of arizona state university . " this divergence time also has considerable importance because it is used to establish how fast genes mutate in humans and to date the historical spread of our species around the globe . 对此，上述研究负责人美国亚利桑那大学的进化生物学家sudhir kumar表示，了解人类何时从最亲密的动物亲戚中分化出来，对人类自身具有很大意义同时，分化的时间也相当重要，它可被用来确定人类基因的变异速度，此外还可用来确定世界范围内人类种群的历史分散时间。
