Cooking Stimulated Big Leap In Human Cognition 473
Hugh Pickens writes "For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make 'the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,' says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, although definitive claims of causation are premature. In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, thereby freeing up calories for our brains. Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and allocate around 20% of their total energy to the brain, compared to approximately 13% for non-human primates and 2-8% for other vertebrates. While other theories for the brain's cognitive spurt have not been ruled out, the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, 'so strange compared to other animals.'"
AUGGGHHH (Score:5, Funny)
We man got smarts by cooking meats you vegan bitches!!! UGH-UGH-UGH-UGH-UGH (think Home Improvement)
well.... (Score:4, Funny)
still no explanation for Steak-umms
Suddenly... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm betting there's a giant black obelisk [wikipedia.org] involved ... (cue weird music)
If that was true.... (Score:5, Funny)
then America would be choke full of obese geniuses.
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
If you give them a couple million years to mutate, yes. Provided my step-mother isn't the one who cooks the animals meals of course, in which case they'd devolve faster than you can say "that steak is raw!".
Hah! I knew it. (Score:3, Funny)
People look at me funny when I ask for my steak well done.
Neanderthal dopes!
Evolve - eat pre-processed food (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If that was true.... (Score:1, Funny)
It must be true. 'Merkins have been pulling in over 50% of the science Nobel prizes for the last 50 years. But how the hell the fatasses continue winning the most Olympic medals is beyond me. Perhaps is has something to do with gravitational attraction.
Re:An interesting experiment (Score:3, Funny)
'A couple of generations', what is this, instant-evolution? Close cousine of instant-ramen?
Re:So... (Score:2, Funny)
Religion? But I thought you said we got smart [youtube.com].
Re:If that was true.... (Score:3, Funny)
No, the theory could still be true - Americans are just over-eating fake food, forcing their teeny digestive systems to divert energy from the brain, thus reversing the cognitive jump.
Juice me up! (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Sit on duff for 2 million years being too stupid to invent anything
2. ???
3. Invent cooking
4. Get smart enough to invent things, like cooking
5. Profit!
I've heard homeless men coming up with more logical explanations than this.
Re:so does eating sushi. (Score:1, Funny)
They do cook the rice.
And Prometheus said... (Score:4, Funny)
Fire. Is there ANYTHING it can't do?
Re:well.... (Score:4, Funny)
Yet it does explain the entire "raw" food movement
Re:An interesting experiment (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Only if a large stone obelisk moves into the neighborhood at the same time...
Re:My Obsession (Score:2, Funny)
Does that mean I can belittle people for making fun of my obsession with eating other people's cooking?
1) I'm fat.
2) I eat buffets all the time.
3) Buffets contain mostly cooked food.
4) Eating cooked food makes you smarter.
Therefore, I'm smarter than you.
And if that doesn't work, how about this.
I'm kind of smart. I'm also fat from eating cooked foods. If I marry a fat woman that's good at cooking food and we have kids. That kid should be a little smarter than me. Then we can make my kid fat by feeding him/her lots of cooked foods. As long as he/she doesn't marry a twig, my grandchildren will be brilliant!!!
I have just justified my overeating.
Thank you again /.
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm... Does this mean fat people are smarter?
(I'm pretty skinny so, well, I am guessing that is going to be my new excuse for doing stupid things.)
Re:If that was true.... (Score:4, Funny)
No, the geniuses are the ones who aren't obese. They've figured out how to channel 30% of their energy into their brains (and in the process, not becoming fat).
Re:And Prometheus said... (Score:2, Funny)
Fire. Is there ANYTHING it can't do?
Your mother.
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah that's exactly what women look for in a man: intelligence.
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:5, Funny)
It helps that we cooked veggies too.
I mean, what is a burger without pickles, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and bread?
Meatloaf.
Re:Humans were carnivores at the beginning (Score:5, Funny)
I can verify this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And Prometheus said... (Score:5, Funny)
Fire. Is there ANYTHING it can't do?
Stop your liver being pecked out each day by a giant Eagle, apparently.....
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:2, Funny)
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:3, Funny)
I think it's fairly obvious that we ARE regressing as a species, though I wouldn't blame it on sushi since the Japanese are among the most industrious and clever folks on the planet.
Re:Evolve - eat pre-processed food (Score:3, Funny)
I think we have to wait for the year 4545 for that.
Re:Humans were carnivores at the beginning (Score:5, Funny)
Then we got really smart....and started fermenting our veggies/grains, and invented BEER!! That way we could drink it!!
Re:Hah! I knew it. (Score:3, Funny)
My brother made the mistake of ordering a steak "well done" at Peter Luger (probably the preeminent steakhouse in Brooklyn, NY). The waiter looked at him in disgust, and delayed the order 30 minutes. When they finally brought all the food out, the waiter said, "Sorry for the delay but we had to spoil a perfectly good piece of meat for this one." as they put the steak in front of my brother.
If you ever get a chance to order multiple steaks in a steakhouse, I advise ordering one rare and one medium-rare. That will give you a good idea of the difference in texture and flavor the extra cooking does. As for well done... Let's just say you shouldn't order it in front of people you want to impress.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:5, Funny)
Your sig is oddly and disturbingly appropiate.
Re:Suddenly... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:5, Funny)
What did the last one taste like?
Re:The start of the Singularity... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Medium-Well is the best (Score:4, Funny)
1" thick and well-marbled
Greek seasoning
rubbing... on the top side
half an hour getting them up
Suffice it to say, you don't have to read your post twice to find the subtext.
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Why on earth would we have big brains that were dumb? That doesn't make any sense from a survival aspect. Carrying around extra weight and a non-functional large brain?
If this theory is true, then yes, we should suddenly see the rise of cat and dog civilizations. They will probably be so super-intelligent that they will actually enslave another, dumber race of creatures to take care of their daily needs. This will give them ample time to bask in the luxury of doing absolutely nothing at all besides playing, eating, sleeping and toying with their slaves.
As the parent said, though, that could never happen.
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Humans were carnivores at the beginning (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The start of the Singularity... (Score:1, Funny)
Only on Slashdot would we compare things to a black hole to 'simplify' them.
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:2, Funny)
I am guessing that is going to be my new excuse for doing stupid things.)
You mean like posting on /. ?
Re:AUGGGHHH (Score:3, Funny)