Sentences with phrase «brain size evolution»

Primate brain size evolution is predicted by diet but not sociality.

«We've known other people who have looked at genes involved in brain size evolution, tested them out and done the same kinds of experiments we've done and come up dry.»

Not exact matches

The moment within the progress of the evolution of the human body that this happens would indeed, we think, be related to brain size.

And because the underlying commitment is philosophical, the flimsiest facts are counted as evidence - as when the president of the National Academy of Sciences recently published an article arguing that evolution is confirmed by differences in the size of finch beaks, as though the sprawling evolutionary drama from biochemicals to the human brain could rest on instances of trivial, limited variation.

The size of the human brain expanded dramatically during the course of evolution, imparting us with unique capabilities to use abstract language and do complex math.

What Phyllis Goldstein's letter on the end of evolution of brain size (22 October, p 35) overlooks is that the...

In addition to postcopulatory sexual selection, the lab's foci include reproductive isolation, sperm behavior, life - history evolution and brain - size evolution.

A new study from the George Washington University's Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology (CASHP) found that whereas brain size evolved at different rates for different species, especially during the evolution of Homo, the genus that includes humans, chewing teeth tended to evolve at more similar rates.

The paper «provides the first evidence of the relative size of the brains and which parts were initially enlarging during critical stages in the evolution of modern mammalian brains,» says biologist R. Glenn Northcutt of the University of California (UC), San Diego.

His team is now using the new model to investigate how social factors may influence evolution of large brain size.

Perhaps, like so many things in life, our fluctuating brain size is a mixed bag — and in contrast to animal breeding, we can not determine where evolution is taking us.

«The findings of the study indicate that simple causal relationships between the evolution of brain size, tool use and tooth size are unlikely to hold true when considering the complex scenarios of hominin evolution and the extended time periods during which evolutionary change has occurred,» said Aida Gómez - Robles, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral scientist at GW's CASHP.

Verma says the new data suggest that BRCA may have a role in the evolution of brain size.

Such dramatic effects on brain size and function are unlikely in human carriers of BRCA1 mutations, the authors of the study note, but they propose the findings could shed light on the gene's role in brain evolution.

«This new timeline has significant implications in helping us to understand this period of human evolution — cooked food provides greater energy, and cooking may be linked to the rapid increases in brain size that occurred from 800,000 years ago onwards.

Two genes that are required for the human brain to develop to its normal size show traces of recent positive selection and rapid evolution.

And Lucy showed without a doubt that upright walking preceded the evolution of large brain size.

Near the end of the article on human evolution, the author suggests that the primary limitation on human brain size is female hip structure.

«We have shown that species with larger brains relative to their body size experience lower mortality than species with smaller brains, supporting the general importance of the cognitive buffer hypothesis in the evolution of large brains.»

Ultimately, we will test how differences in brain size contribute to the shape and development of the skull between species and the evolution of rapid skull expansion found in mammals.

The comparison of the relative size of the prefrontal region in primate brains is described in a paper titled «No relative expansion of the number of prefrontal neurons in primate and human evolution» by Herculano - Houzel and postdoctoral fellow Mariana Gabi published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition.

Metabolic acceleration and the evolution of human brain size and life history.

Rather, brain size is more accurately predicted by primates» diet, according to their new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Second, Dunbar points out that social group size and diet need not be two alternative explanations of brain evolution.

He hinted that gestural theory could clear up another mystery about this period as well: why the stone tools of these early hominids show little evolution for almost two million years, despite increases in brain size.

By labeling HAR1 molecules in human and macaque embryos, we discovered that the RNAs functioned in neurons during patterning and layout of the cortex, 6 a brain structure that expanded greatly in size during human evolution.7 Exactly which genes HAR1 is regulating remains to be determined.

On the other hand fossil OH 62 proves that «habilis ``, far from being Homo - like, was small and ape - like - these cases were the very opposite of what evolution theory predicted and expected.103 Even though the brain size of WT 15000 was smaller than most modern humans, it was still larger than quite a few people living today.

So if brain - size evolution is linked to smarts, cats would rank below cows, which would rank below dogs.