News Finding: It can give scientists a broader perspective for interpreting data.
Paper Finding: We find that these age estimates are older than previously reported dates for all but one of these nodes.
News Context: Comparing DNA among related animals can provide a clear picture of how their shared genes evolved over time, giving rise to new and separate species, Martin said. It can give scientists a broader perspective for interpreting data. Under the new estimate, Toumai would fall within the period after the human lineage split from chimpanzees, Martin said.
Paper Context: We find that these age estimates are older than previously reported dates for all but one of these nodes. Conditional on there being no classification or dating error, the fossil's age provides a minimum bound for the divergence time of the evolutionary lineage it represents. The pattern and variability observed in homologous sequences of DNA from different species contain traces of the history of the divergence and evolution of the phylogeny, and mathematical models of evolution can be used to combine our knowledge of genetics with the sequence data to extract information about evolutionary history, particularly divergence times.