Author: Rose Miyatsu

June 4, 2018 BY ALEXANDRU MICU | ZME SCIENCE Two research teams have uncovered the gene family that allowed us to evolve our impressively large brains Compared to other organisms on the planet, our globs of gray matter are unusually big. That’s actually quite a fortunate turn of events since we owe them our success as a species…

June 1, 2018 By Alice Klein | New Scientists How did humans get so smart? A random reshuffle in our ancestor’s genome more than 3 million years ago let our brains grow three times as large. David Haussler at the University of California, Santa Cruz and his colleagues were comparing brain development in humans and monkeys when they found…

May 31, 2018 By Abby Olena Three members of a gene family called NOTCH2NL may have been involved in the evolution of humans’ big cortex. In the last few million years, the brains of humans and human ancestors have quickly evolved to be much bigger and more complex than their primate relatives. The genetic and molecular mechanisms that…

May 31, 2018 By Catharine Paddock PhD  | Fact checked by Tim Newman | Medical News Today A group of genes that is found only in humans and arose in our ancestors 3–4 million years ago may have driven the evolution of our bigger brains. This revelation — and the work that led up to it — is…

June 2, 2018 CBC Radio Researchers in the U.S. and Europe have identified a unique human gene that seems to be an important factor in our oversized human brains, which are three times the size of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. The teams found that the gene works during brain development by creating a large…

SciShow Hosted by: Stefan Chin Transcript: I don’t like to brag, but I’ve got a pretty big brain. And so do you. Compared to gorillas and orangutans — apes that are about our size — our brains are three times as massive. That extra size is likely a big part of what lets us us…

Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have pinpointed three genes that may have played a pivotal role in an important milestone in human evolution: the striking increase in brain size that facilitated cognitive advances that helped define what it means to be human. These genes, found only in people, appeared between 3 and 4 million…

May 31, 2018 MAR DE MIGUEL | El Mundo Un error genético cambió la forma en que se desarrollaron nuestras neuronas Identifican 40 genes humanos relacionados con la inteligencia Las diferencias entre el cerebro del hombre y el de otros primates La evolución es un proceso que es fácil apreciar a gran escala, cuando prestamos…

May 31, 2018 Clive Cookson, Science Editor | Financial Times  Research teams discover family of genes called NOTCH2NL that shaped intelligence Three international research teams have solved a genetic mystery of evolution: how human brains got to be so big. Two groups of scientists have discovered a family of genes called NOTCH2NL, found only in…

May 31, 2018 by Katherine Lindemann The genes also play a role in neurological disorders, and may provide a path to their treatment A set of three genes found only in humans appears to play an important role in our large brain size, according to a newly released study. The genes, called NOTCH2NLA, NOTCH2NLB, and NOTCH2NLC, are…

May 31, 2018 Summary Three brain development genes are found only in humans and may have helped drive the rapid expansion of the brain starting roughly three million years ago. A newly discovered set of genes could help explain how humans diverged from other apes. Three genes involved in nerve cell generation in the brain…