Chimps \'r\' not us (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 16, 2015, 21:23 (3296 days ago) @ David Turell

A new study shows our brain is much more plastic than the chimp's:-http://phys.org/news/2015-11-nature-nurture-human-brains-evolved.html-"Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, but what is it about the human brain that makes us so different? Researchers at the George Washington University may have unearthed another piece of the puzzle. In a study published on Nov. 16, scientists discovered that human brains exhibit more plasticity, propensity to be modeled by the environment, than chimpanzee brains and that this may have accounted for part of human evolution. -***-"'We found that the anatomy of the chimpanzee brain is more strongly controlled by genes than that of human brains, suggesting that the human brain is extensively shaped by its environment no matter its genetics," said Aida Gómez-Robles, postdoctoral scientist at the GW Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology and lead author on the paper. "So while genetics determined human and chimpanzee brain size, it isn't as much of a factor for human cerebral organization as it is for chimpanzees."-***-"'The human brain appears to be much more responsive to environmental influences," said Dr. Gómez-Robles. "It's something that facilitates the constant adaptation of the human brain and behavior to the changing environment, which includes our social and cultural context.'" -Comment: Not a surprising difference. Chimps are basically unchanged for six million years, but we have.