“HOW the human got his brain” is probably the most important “Just So” story that Rudyard Kipling never wrote. Kipling did not ignore people in his quirky take on evolution. Two of his tales describe the invention of the alphabet and the invention of letter-writing. But he took for granted the human brains behind these inventions, which are three times the size of those of humanity’s closest living relatives, the great apes, and are thus as characteristic of people as trunks are of elephants or humps are of camels.
This week, though, sees the publication of two studies which, added together, form an important paragraph in the story of the human brain. Both concern a version of a gene called NOTCH2, which has been known for some time to be involved in embryonic development. Both point to an event in the past which changed the activity of this gene in the evolutionary line that leads to modern people. And both are supported by experiments which suggest that the change...Continue reading
Source: Science and technology https://ift.tt/2xQ0yCQ
EmoticonEmoticon