WASHINGTON - The human brain may still be evolving. So suggests new research that tracked changes in two genes thought to help regulate brain growth, changes that appeared well after the rise of modern humans 200,000 years ago. That the defining feature of humans -- our large brains -- continued to evolve as recently as 5,800 years ago, and may be doing so today, promises to surprise the average person, if not biologists. "We, including scientists, have considered ourselves as sort of the pinnacle of evolution," noted lead researcher Bruce Lahn, a University of Chicago geneticist whose studies appear in today's edition of the journal Science. "There's a sense we as humans have kind of peaked," agreed Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "A different way to look at is it's almost impossible for evolution not to happen."
So suggests new research that tracked changes in two genes thought to help regulate brain growth, changes that appeared well after the rise of modern humans 200,000 years ago.
That the defining feature of humans -- our large brains -- continued to evolve as recently as 5,800 years ago, and may be doing so today, promises to surprise the average person, if not biologists.
"We, including scientists, have considered ourselves as sort of the pinnacle of evolution," noted lead researcher Bruce Lahn, a University of Chicago geneticist whose studies appear in today's edition of the journal Science.
"There's a sense we as humans have kind of peaked," agreed Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "A different way to look at is it's almost impossible for evolution not to happen."
They must have missed the memo that there is not evolution. :-)
The human brain may still be evolving, new research suggests. New variants of two genes that control brain development have swept through much of the human population during the last several thousand years, biologists have found. The evolution of a large, complex brain has been the defining feature of the human lineage - although human brain size has not changed over the past 200,000 years. But it is not apparent whether the new genetic adaptations discovered in human brains have any effect on brain size, or intelligence. What is more, not everyone possesses the new gene variants, potentially inflaming an already controversial debate about whether brains of different groups of people function differently. "Whatever advantage these genes give, some groups have it and some don't. This has to be the worst nightmare for people who believe strongly there are no differences in brain function between groups," says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US.
The evolution of a large, complex brain has been the defining feature of the human lineage - although human brain size has not changed over the past 200,000 years. But it is not apparent whether the new genetic adaptations discovered in human brains have any effect on brain size, or intelligence.
What is more, not everyone possesses the new gene variants, potentially inflaming an already controversial debate about whether brains of different groups of people function differently.
"Whatever advantage these genes give, some groups have it and some don't. This has to be the worst nightmare for people who believe strongly there are no differences in brain function between groups," says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US.
