BIOLOGY 1M03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Brain Size, Foxp2, Directional Selection
22 Apr 2017
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Enhanced social skills may bene t from big brains: understanding care givers may allow smart kids to gain more care, smart negotiators may gain tness within social groups. One human activity that is not shared by any other species: cooking our food (controlling re), energetic signi cance of cooking, increased brain size, temperature sensitivity , Allowing a reduction in the size and cost of the digestive system. Energetically ef cient: may explain the last increase in the brain size of homo sapiens. Higher digestibility of starch, increases the amount of energy gained from food. Protein denaturation, break down proteins that are toxic to us, thus bene tting energetics in the long run. Getting sick or damaged by bad proteins could be problematic. Raw to cooked food, much easier to digest if the food is cooked: digestion is an energetically costly activity, by cooking food we save on the costs of digestion.
