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The Human Advantage - How Our Brains Became Remarkable (Hardcover)
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The Human Advantage - How Our Brains Became Remarkable (Hardcover)
Series: The MIT Press
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List price R743
Loot Price R562
Discovery Miles 5 620
You Save R181 (24%)
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Why our human brains are awesome, and how we left our cousins, the
great apes, behind: a tale of neurons and calories, and
cooking.Humans are awesome. Our brains are gigantic, seven times
larger than they should be for the size of our bodies. The human
brain uses 25% of all the energy the body requires each day. And it
became enormous in a very short amount of time in evolution,
allowing us to leave our cousins, the great apes, behind. So the
human brain is special, right? Wrong, according to Suzana
Herculano-Houzel. Humans have developed cognitive abilities that
outstrip those of all other animals, but not because we are
evolutionary outliers. The human brain was not singled out to
become amazing in its own exclusive way, and it never stopped being
a primate brain. If we are not an exception to the rules of
evolution, then what is the source of the human
advantage?Herculano-Houzel shows that it is not the size of our
brain that matters but the fact that we have more neurons in the
cerebral cortex than any other animal, thanks to our ancestors'
invention, some 1.5 million years ago, of a more efficient way to
obtain calories: cooking. Because we are primates, ingesting more
calories in less time made possible the rapid acquisition of a huge
number of neurons in the still fairly small cerebral cortex-the
part of the brain responsible for finding patterns, reasoning,
developing technology, and passing it on through
culture.Herculano-Houzel shows us how she came to these
conclusions-making "brain soup" to determine the number of neurons
in the brain, for example, and bringing animal brains in a suitcase
through customs. The Human Advantage is an engaging and original
look at how we became remarkable without ever being special.
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