Whales are more like us than we thought, at least as far as our brains are concerned. This according to neuroscientists Patrick Hof and Estel van der Gucht of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Hof says the brains of some whale species, including humpbacks, sperm whales, and orcas, contain spindle neurons. They're specialized brain cells believed to be involved in social thinking, and previously found only in humans, great apes, and a few whale relatives like dolphins.

PATRICK HOF (Mount Sinai School of Medicine): says,"But these cells appear separately during their evolutionary history. And in that case, the whales were first, because they evolved before the great apes. "