The 15 tweaks that made us human

Interesting, particularly about the specific genes that led to some of these changes.

I question whether "living in groups" was fully explained, as there are lots and lots of animals that do that, even many insects.

(I was amused by a typographical error on the credits page. It listed "Bold All Over" for "Bald All Over." "Bold All Over" may not be a bad description of humanity's migration to all parts of the planet.)
 
I was watching the BBC program Super Cute Animals today, and it made the observation that laughter is common among the great apes, but differs on different branches - the implication being that it would have been shared by a human ancestor, making laughter 30-60 million years old.
 
It's also somewhat interesting that humans have roughly the same number of hairs - all over the body - as chimpanzees do. The hair is there, just very short and fine.
 
Neanderthal man , had a larger brain then Cro-Magnon, were about twice as strong and yet they didn't survive.
 
Dire wolves are inferior in many ways to the Grey Wolf. Guess which we still have :)
Sabre Toothed tigers had some serious problems.
Perhaps we ate the Mammoths to death though.
Likely rats that came on the ships did-in the Dodo though.
 
mosaix said:
Size isn't everything. ;)
Click to expand...

But there's no evidence to suggest that they were less intelligent or evolved they made tools , probably painted a few pictures in caves. If anything they were hardier and more robust then Cro-Magnon. They did co exist for with Cro-Magnon, till about 30 or 40,000 years ago.
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Dire wolves are inferior in many ways to the Grey Wolf. Guess which we still have :)
Sabre Toothed tigers had some serious problems.
Perhaps we ate the Mammoths to death though.
Likely rats that came on the ships did-in the Dodo though.
Click to expand...

Those Saber teeth were a liability for the Cat. Tooth gets stuck in a bone, break off Cat can't hunt it's regular prey, starves as dies. Overspecialization , No big animals to hunt Starvation. End of big tooth kitty cats'

Dire wolves were about They a 1/3 largerthen Grey Wolves . But the Saber tooth they were geared to hunt the larger prey animals . They were less adaptable and nimble then the Grey Wolf. There is evidence that they may have survived till about 3000 years ago.

Also the Short faced Bear, larger then a Grizzly, got out competed by the smaller more nimble bears.
 
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