Why Do Humans Grow Up So Slowly? Blame the Brain

sciencehabit (1205606) writes Humans are late bloomers when compared with other primates — they spend almost twice as long in childhood and adolescence as chimps, gibbons, or macaques do. But why? One widely accepted but hard-to-test theory is that children's brains consume so much energy that they divert glucose from the rest of the body, slowing growth. Now, a clever study of glucose uptake and body growth in children confirms this 'expensive tissue' hypothesis.

Comments

Re:not so fast

[Half-pint HAL]

No-one should be allowed to comment on anything if they have read The Selfish Gene. Dawkins is a dangerous hack and a terrible writer. His pop-science books never educate the state-of-the-art, but instead indocrtrinate his view to the exclusion of all others.