Interesting:

The first major analysis of one of the earliest known hominids suggests that humans may not have evolved from apes.
One of the principal investigators, C. Owen Lovejoy, associate professor of biological anthropology at Kent State University, said the research reveals that the reverse could be true: Apes might have evolved from the hominids that eventually evolved into humans.
“People often think we evolved from apes, but no, apes in many ways evolved from us,” Dr. Lovejoy said. “It has been a popular idea to think humans are modified chimpanzees. From studying Ardipithecus ramidus, or ‘Ardi,’ we learn that we cannot understand or model human evolution from chimps and gorillas.”
The research is being published in a special edition of the journal Science.

Update: Obviously, this means only one thing. Dr. Zaius was right all along. This video doesn’t demonstrate that, but it’s more fun than one that would.

Update II: Okay, okay just to stem the tide of nit-picky readers, there’s something else to be said. Here’s an email that speaks for many:

Jonah–
Perhaps I’m remembering wrong, but this article strikes me as bad journalism, as this is nothing new. Evolutionary scientists long ago abandoned the idea that man evolved from apes, focusing instead on the “common ancestor” approach. Which makes intuitive sense, after all– if we evolved from the chimpanzees, then why are the chimpanzees still around?
Evolution doesn’t stop just because Homo Sapiens showed up, there are fits, starts, dead-ends, and unavoidable gaps in the fossil record. Almost everything evolves (technically, everything *does* evolve, just some species are so evolutionarily successful that there’s not much pressure from nature to change, e.g. cockroaches).
Humans evolved a lot since the days of our common ancestor. Why wouldn’t the same be true for the other ape species that emerged from that same ancestor? What makes *them* so special?
Answer? Nothing.
Anyway, no matter what the research says, I’m still with Troy McClure: I hate every ape I see, from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z. . .