What makes humans unique? It's in the ear
Several genes involved in the development of [human] hearing seem to have undergone "positive selection". That is, it seems that the capacity for hearing in humans has been specially tuned by natural selection. This in turn might have made possible, or at least helped along, the elaborate spoken language unique to humanity.
[R]esearchers announced yesterday that they had completed the first draft - in effect, a text with a fair few gaps and mistakes - of the entire DNA sequence of Pan troglodytes, the chimpanzee, and stored it in a public database, so that biologists all over the world can start matching humankind against its nearest relative.