We share a common set of emotions and the capacity for self-awareness, abstract thinking, knowing right from wrong, and doing complicated math. All are examples of the hundreds of traits shared by all human beings in the world today.
The billions of human beings living today all belong to one species: Homo sapiens. As in all species, there is variation among individual human beings, from size and shape to skin tone and eye color. But we are much more alike than we are different. We are, in fact, remarkably similar.
The chimpanzee and bonobo are humans' closest living relatives. These three species look alike in many ways, both in body and behavior.
Chimpanzee: 96 percent identical
By studying the genomes of chimps (which after bonobos are our closest living ancestors), researchers are hoping to understand what makes us uniquely human.
DNA is what makes your body tick and, because we are not clones, every human's genome is unique in its own special way. It starts with your genes: the four-letter code that provides the blueprint of your body is unlike anyone else's and it's made up of nucleotides A-G-C-T.
Human universals–of which hundreds have been identified–consist of those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and mind that, so far as the record has been examined, are found among all peoples known to ethnography and history.
All living organisms share several key characteristics or functions: order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, adaptation, growth and development, regulation, homeostasis, energy processing, and evolution.
The First Humans
One of the earliest known humans is Homo habilis, or “handy man,” who lived about 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa.
While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.
Your life purpose consists of the central motivating aims of your life—the reasons you get up in the morning. Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning. For some people, purpose is connected to vocation—meaningful, satisfying work.
This art gallery explains the 6 characteristics of human nature: emotion, rebellion, chaos, hard times, work for what we want, and self-image. This picture represents human nature because humans feel as if they are dying on the inside but put on a pretty face to hide it.
The three traits described are bipedalism, language, and tool making. This video assumes some familiarity with the theory of evolution, the process of how organisms developed from earlier forms of life.
Examples of elements that may be considered cultural universals are gender roles, the incest taboo, religious and healing ritual, mythology, marriage, language, art, dance, music, cooking, games, jokes, sports, birth and death because they involve some sort of ritual ceremonies accompanying them, etc.
Foundational Human Qualities. Qualities that form the foundation of all other human qualities include honesty, integrity, courage, self-awareness, and wholeheartedness. These qualities define who we are as human beings.
But our ability to think, learn, communicate and control our environment makes humanity genuinely different from all other animals.
Some people think that the main differences between humans other animal species is our ability of complex reasoning, our use of complex language, our ability to solve difficult problems, and introspection (this means describing your own thoughts and feelings).
They found that different brain regions use different strategies to interact with each other. This combination of complementary information between different sources is known as 'synergy' and may explain why the human brain is smarter than our primate ancestors.
Aardvarks, aye-ayes, and humans are among the species with no close living relatives.
Humans diverged from apes [specifically, the chimpanzee lineage (Pan)] at some point between ~9.3 million and ~6.5 million years ago (Ma), and habitual bipedalism evolved early in hominins (accompanied by enhanced manipulation and, later on, cognition).
All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup. Differences in the remaining 0.1 percent hold important clues about the causes of diseases.