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Researchers Say Dark Winters Led To Bigger Human Brains
Brad1138 writes "Humans living at high latitude have bigger eyes and bigger brains to cope with poor light during long winters and cloudy days, UK scientists have said. from the article: 'The scientists measured the eye sockets and brain volumes of 55 skulls from 12 populations across the world, and plotted the results against latitude. Lead author Eiluned Pearce told BBC News: "We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude and both eye socket size and cranial capacity."'"
So Santa Claus has the biggest brain of all ?
RTFA "The Oxford University team said bigger brains did not make people smarter. Larger vision processing areas fill the extra capacity, they write in the Royal Society's Biology Letters journal."
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
now there is a quality sample size that you can draw quality conclusions from. That is some experimental rigor to be proud of!
I don't need large brains to have a good time!
Reality is not racist; it simply is.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Your comment just suggests you didn't bother to RTFA.
"In the paper, we argue that having bigger brains doesn't mean that high-latitude humans are necessarily smarter. It's just they need bigger eyes and brains to be able to see well where they live."
They're saying that the extra cranial capacity is being used by the visual processing centres of the brain.
And to be honest, your comment isn't combating racism, it's reinforcing it.
I stole this Sig
Eskimos live up there too.
The ever-glowing dual monitors are like a tropical sun. So, no.
Cold didn't have to *lead* to anything. Using the word "Led" in the title is misleading because it suggests a causal link. For all we know, having bigger brains made people leave hotter areas because they felt uncomfortable (I know I feel REALLY bad when it's hot, and I have a HUGE brain) or were more adventurous and sought to live in new areas.
. . . the Morlocks. They may be ugly anthropophages, but I figured they'd have to be smarter than the Eloi, and got to play with ancient machinery to boot.
It must be quite a trick, estimating how those larger brains must have been structured, considering they're ... entirely decayed by now. Their paper http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/07/12/rsbl.2011.0570.full doesn't appear to substantiate it either. Where exactly did the BBC get that quote?
But they just said it was due to sports.
So, which is it?
Best guess, they're likely taking existing brains (in today's humans) and scaling down to fir the skulls. Given that you can reconstruct *most* of the outer shape from the cranial cavity, it's not a bad initial assumption to make.
OTOH, while it's not too awful likely that a given 'duty' of a set of brain cells shifts all that radically, I do agree with you to an extent.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Well, we've looked at practically every Ape species that we could find, because we're land mammals and we have access to, well, land. If you want to find surprises, I'd look to the oceans. Do we really know every "variant" of dolphins? What about whales? We judge intelligence by how *like us* species are, which means (among other things) that we want to see them using tools. Who's to say there aren't several whale "languages" (there probably are), or that dolphins don't "discuss" hunting tactics.
I'm temped to use "there are more things in heaven and earth", since Shakespeare seems to have neglected the sea.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
... by peer review. Conclusion is remarkably reminiscent of "scientific" bases for racist conclusions so prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th century social sciences.
"Winter is coming" could really be a good news?
DindinX
People who live in hot climates have larger sinuses, and vice-versa, due to body heat regulation. Different people are different, period. Do we have to keep saying that everyone's the same because if they aren't then it's automatically offensive? If we're different, then we have to find out who's "better"?
This discussion is so old, and it skews science. It's the same with genders -- are we allowed to say that men and women have different thought patterns yet, or do we have to whisper? This PC bullshit always pisses me off.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
I code in the dark.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
No No... This makes sense... Stay with me, but the climate is warming, right? Regardless what you think about why. And I've notices that people seems to be getting stupider and stupider...
TFA is all wrong! People near the equator have the smaller next generation iBrains with better eye sockets that aren't available yet in the northern markets.
Global warming affects the temperature, not the length of night.
Do you by any chance live near the equator? ;)
the idea of there being specialized areas of the brain is coming into disrepute,
No. There clearly are areas of specialized cortex, the visual cortex being one. That doesn't mean that other parts of the brain aren't involved in visual processing (for example). The trivial example of this is the homunculus. If you damage a particular area in the motor or sensory cortex, you will see the effects of that damage in very specific regions of the body.
Size of a particular region isn't necessarily correlated with the level or degree of function and lots of other things happen in various regions of the brain.[Long complex discussion on how the brain works. Lots of handwaving.]
I'm not sure where you picked up that concept, but it's not correct, unless I'm not understanding what you meant to say.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Culture not race is bigger bearing on the IQ and test scores of a person. In fact it is noted that 5th-8th generation Asian-Americans score lower on tests than 1st-3rd generation Asian-Americans. The same is noted for the 1st-3rd generation Africans(i.e Nigerians, Senegalese) vs 8+ generations deep African-American cousins.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Isn't the contorted facts that you drool; its that you drool them. Racist is a convenient short hand for stupid, ignorant and mainly afraid.
It may be no more your fault than if you were born blind. Like the blind, there is a lot you can do to overcome your disability. The blind can because they have motivation and courage. Courage is a very big part of overcoming your limitations.
Peer groups can help with motivation and support. That is what has made AA the success it is, and there are a wide range of peer support groups available. But, as a first step, you seek them out. Motivation is important; and life really is a lot better if you aren't hampered by being stupid, ignorant and afraid. Good Luck.
It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.
...they have more time to spend on learning about frivolous stuff like numerical sequences and funny shapes.
This stuff is not frivolous - it is the next logical step. One you have shelter, dinner and warmth you want to make sure that you will continue to have these things. This means identifying the patterns of nature and coming up with strategies to cope with them or benefit from them in order to improve the quality of life. That is still what science is about today. Just because it is a little more abstract than designing a better spear to skewer a boar does not mean that the basic purpose of all this learning has changed.
You are confused between latitude (how far north or south of the equator you are) and altitude (how far above sea level you are). Usually at higher altitudes you see smaller creatures (this is of creatures of the same type) compared to those at lower altitudes since in general there are fewer resources for them.
Time to offend someone