Survival of the Fattest

Download or read book Survival of the Fattest written by Stephen C. Cunnane and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did humans evolve larger and more sophisticated brains? In general, evolution depends on a special combination of circumstances: part genetics, part time, and part environment. In the case of human brain evolution, the main environmental influence was adaptation to a OCyshore-basedOCO diet, which provided the worldOCOs richest source of nutrition, as well as a sedentary lifestyle that promoted fat deposition. Such a diet included shellfish, fish, marsh plants, frogs, birdOCOs eggs, etc. Humans and, and more importantly, hominid babies started to get fat, a crucial distinction that led to the development of larger brains and to the evolution of modern humans. A larger brain is expensive to maintain and this increasing demand for energy results in, succinctly, survival of the fattest."