4 ms·
How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains
- simiano 11y agoThere is also this awesome talk by Suzana Herculano-Houzel (mentioned in the article) http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_...
- restalis 11y agoI am a little disappointed to find no comparison to the dolphin brain in the talk about the number of neurons! Why elephant? If it was about the size it could have been the animal with the largest brain out there (which happens to be a cetacean, like dolphins)!
- omalleyt 11y agoYup! And the article incorrectly states that humans have more cortical neurons than any other animal. Pilot whales (a misnomer, they're dolphins) have more cortical neurons than humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Cerebral_cortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n... Which is especially important because the article takes as given that the number of cortical neurons is what makes humans special.
- retupmoc01 11y agowikipedia doesn't always have all the answers: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151110-evolution-of-big-brains/#comment-361136 https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151110-evolution-of-big-bra...
- bostonpete 11y agoThe comparison to elephants was made to illustrate the fact that number of neurons isn't closely correlated with brain size. Seemed like a reasonable point of comparison to me.
- CapitalistCartr 11y agoPlanet of the Apes here we come. We should have a second uplifted species of ape by mid century.
- swamp40 11y agoI like this quote: A few years later, the anthropologist Richard Wrangham built on this idea, arguing that the invention of cooking was crucial to human brain evolution. Soft, cooked foods are much easier to digest than tough raw ones, yielding more calories for less gastrointestinal work. So along that line, the massive recent increase in high-sugar food/drinks and fast-food restaurants like McDonald's should be fueling another leap in brain size!
- tomcam 11y agoMy wife often observes that I lack a supersize brain.