The gene that made mice squeak strangely

A new study suggests that the NOVA1 gene may have been a key player in the evolution of human language

- CARL ZIMMER

SCIENTISTS HAVE LONG struggled to understand how human language evolved. Words and sentences don't leave fossils behind for paleontologists to dig up. A genetic study published on Tuesday offers an important new clue. Researchers found that, between 250,000 and 500,000 years ago, a gene known as NOVA1 underwent a profound evolutionary change in our ancestors. When the scientists put the human version of NOVA1 into mice, the animals made more complex sounds.

Erich Jarvis, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University and a co-author of the new study, cautioned that NOVA1 alone did not suddenly switch on our ancestors' language abilities. "I wouldn't say it's 'the' language gene," Jarvis said. Instead, over millions of years, language arose thanks to mutations in hundreds of genes.