It looks like our big brains have been causing us problems for half a million years. From the moment of our birth and for the rest of our lives our big honkin’ noggins seem to cause us no end of grief.
Check this out: Childbirth Was Already Difficult For Neanderthals
I’ve thought for sometime that our tendency for belief in deities and the supernatural may come from our strong parental instincts. Since we’re so helpless when we are born we might have evolved strong parental attachments that never switch off once we’re grown. Behaviors associated with strong parental attachment may be what they’re focusing on in this study.
Check out this article at Science Daily.
This article just goes to show you that sometimes people would rather kill you than change their minds. This poor guy may well be executed for downloading information about women’s rights.
It appears that the ability to recognize yourself in the mirror isn’t just limited to mammals. There is evidence that this awareness of self occurs in Magpies as well. Maybe you don’t need a neocortex for some higher brain functions after all.
Check out the paper at PLOS Biology.