Tag Archives: Evolution

A drug that could make you grow sensory whiskers (and penis spines)

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“Only a few molecules separate you from having sensory whiskers and a penis spine. That’s right – evolution has cheated you out of those whiskers that make your cat a super-sensor and the spines that, well, make your penis super-sensitive. A study published today in Nature reveals that human DNA still bears traces of genes that could, if tinkered with slightly, cause the next generation of Homo sapiens to have new sensory organs. And penis spines. How would that work?” (via Gizmodo).
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Mind Reading and the Evolution of Vision

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A fascinating insight from an interview with theoretical neurobiologist Mark Changizi, who thinks about vision:

‘I was intrigued by the “mind reading” aspects of vision. In a nutshell, how does this work, and how do humans benefit from this ability?’

‘Our color vision fundamentally relies upon the cones in our retina, and I argue in my research that color vision evolved in us primates for the purpose of sensing the emotions and states of those around us. We primates have an unusual kind of color vision – our cones sample the visible spectrum in a peculiar fashion – and I have shown that one needs that kind of peculiar color sense in order to pick up the color modulations that occur on our skin when we blush, blanch, redden with anger, and so on. Our funny primate variety of color vision turns out to be optimized for seeing the physiological modulations in the blood in the skin that underlies our primate color signals.

So, we evolved special mechanisms designed for sensing the emotions and states of others around us. That sounds a lot like the evolution of a “mind-reading” mechanism, which is why I (only half in jest) describe it that way.’ (N e u r o n a r r a t i v e)

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Why do people cook?

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“…[W]ith Homo sapiens, what makes the species unique in Dr Wrangham’s opinion is that its food is so often cooked.

Cooking is a human universal. No society is without it. No one other than a few faddists tries to survive on raw food alone. And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. Moreover, without cooking, the human brain (which consumes 20-25% of the body’s energy) could not keep running. Dr Wrangham thus believes that cooking and humanity are coeval.

In fact, as he outlined to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Chicago, he thinks that cooking and other forms of preparing food are humanity’s “killer app”: the evolutionary change that underpins all of the other—and subsequent—changes that have made people such unusual animals.” via The Economist.

One more in the myriad attempted definitions of being human that go, “Man is the only animal who…” Here is a Google search on the meme of human uniqueness.

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Evolution, why it still happens

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MiscarriageMiscarriageA response to Steve Jones’ contention that human evolution is stopping:

“[M]ost people “know” that evolution is about “survival of the fittest” and that nature is red in tooth and claw. Therefore, it naturally stands to reason that when mortality declines evolution will be a weaker force. I think the problem here is that our conception of evolution is focused too greatly on proximate modes and large scale dynamics. That is, selective high mortality rates are a “common sense” way in which the “weak” can be weeded out from the “strong.” But what about the extremely high human spontaneous abortion rates? Evolutionary biologist Mark Ridley has argued that increased miscarriage rates will “balance” out the fact that more individuals with deleterious mutations are reproducing today than in the past. Selection therefore occurs in utero; we don’t observe it so it is not salient to us. But it is selection nonetheless.” (Gene Expression Blog)