Chimpanzees are the closest primates genetically to humans. In this paper the authors demonstrated the genetic changes that differentiated humans from chimpanzees. By comparing human and chimpanzee chromosomes the authors showed that essentially every band and sub band observed in man has direct counterpart in the chimps' chromosome complement. However, man has 46 chromosomes whereas the chimp has 48. They unequivocally showed that the presence of just 46 chromosomes in man vs. the 48 in chimps can be explained by fusion of 2 acrocentric chromosomes to form the human chromosome number 2, and that this "fusion" is generated by telomeric fusion. The fusion occurred at the upper 2/3 and lower 1/3 of band q13.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Yunis, Sawyer, Dunham.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)