I think that if there's anyone twisting facts, it's the people who spread the information, not the ones doing the research. Here is one of the more reliable news reports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/23/evolution
The original Nature article is here, but you can only view the abstract (unless you happen to have a subscription, which I don't).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7156/abs/nature06113.html
Okay, this is my own explanation here:
Great apes are the apes which include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. By comparing the differences in genetic makeup, scientists have been able to guestimate at how long ago the different species diverged.
Evolutionary divergence is when two populations of the same species separate (often geographically) and their genomes (the overall genetic makeup of the population) change to the point that they cannot or will not interbreed anymore. At that point the two groups are considered two separate species.
Anyway, orangutans split off from the rest of the great apes first, then gorillas, and then finally chimps and humans. Here's a diagram that illustrates that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hominidae.PNG
Hominidae is the family name of great apes. Pongo is orangutans, Pan is chimps.
Now, as the Guardian article says:
"Geneticists have previously put the date at which the human and chimpanzee lineage split from gorillas at around 7m years ago, with humans and chimps diverging more recently, at 5m years ago."
And in the previous sentence it says what the new finding suggests:
"The finding, if confirmed, will redraw the evolutionary tree of primates, suggesting that humans and chimpanzees must have split from their gorilla-like ancestors 3m years earlier than thought."
There you have it. From what I understand, there have been very few fossils found from this geologic layer / time period, and so far they've been basing what they know off of the genetic differences stuff.
Okay, I found an article from National Geographic, so I'll add information from it into the mix.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070822-fossil-ape.html
Here are some select quotes that give new info.
For years scientists have been unable to find fossils of direct ancestors of modern great apes in Africa dating back to between 8 million and 14 million years ago.
But the fossil record of great apes—including gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos—is abundant in Asia and Europe during this time.
Experts had speculated that the common ancestor of all apes and humans had left Africa and split off into separate species.
Among the new species was the ancestor of African apes and humans, which returned to Africa sometime around seven million years ago. Molecular analyses of fossils from Europe and later African species seemed to back up this hypothesis.
The recent fossil discovery, however, means that ancient gorilla-like apes lived in Africa as far back as ten million years ago.
(the article discusses reasons why it might not be a gorilla ancestor, then...)
Nonetheless, the experts say, the find does seem poised to overturn old ideas that were based on the lack of a fossil record rather than on solid evidence.
"We just can't use the absence of evidence as an evidence of absence," said Yohannes Haile-Selassie, a paleontologist with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
It's possible Suwa and his colleagues will accumulate more fossils that might support the theory of an earlier evolutionary split between apes and humans, Haile-Selassie said.
Hopefully it should give you an idea of what's going on behind the scenes. Certain aspects of scientific theories are more unreliable than others, especially where evidence is limited. This happens to be one of those cases. The conclusion so far is that we don't know whether it is a gorilla ancestor that has already split off from the family tree. I guess we'll have to just wait and see.
*finally done writing, yay*
