When symptoms are present, diagnosing the presence of osteophytes is a combination of a clinical exam of the joints and x-rays. Once the presence of osteophytes is confirmed, the treatment will depend on the severity of the disease.
While the genetic difference between individual humans today is minuscule â about 0.1%, on average â study of the same aspects of the chimpanzee genome indicates a difference of about 1.2%. The bonobo (Pan paniscus), which is the close cousin of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), differs from humans to the same degree.
More recent research has propped up Darwin's theory of common descent (also called common ancestry): genome analysis reveals the genetic difference between humans and chimps to be less than 2 percent. In other words, humans and chimps have DNA sequences that are greater than 98 percent similar. While the genetic similarity between human and ape strengthened Darwin's theory, a significant, unexplained discrepancy remained. While great apes all have 48 chromosomes (24 pairs), humans have only 46 (23 pairs).