kelliem: Alton Brown (alton)
( Aug. 11th, 2008 01:25 pm)
I wonder if Alton Brown has seen this article? An excerpt:

For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," he said. Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.

To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, said Khaitovich, carefully adding that definitive claims of causation are premature. The research is detailed in the August 2008 issue of Genome Biology.

The extra calories may not have come from more food, but rather from the emergence of pre-historic "Iron Chefs;" the first hearths also arose about 200,000 years ago.


Cool! Who knew cooking makes you smarter? ;D
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (middleman)
( Aug. 11th, 2008 09:59 pm)
Every time I watch The Middleman, I get at least one unexpected guffaw and usually a whole lot more. Tonight's were, in no particular order. "Story of O!", "Agents Alexander Scott & Kelly Robinson," and "Just a canceled television show, I don't expect you'll get the reference." Heeee! A few eps ago the "Hear that noise? It's Simone de Beauvoir rolling in her grave." had me ROFL.

Seriously, if you're not watching it, you should be. The first episode wasn't so good, so I hope any of you who didn't tune back in after that one will give it a second chance. I don't think you'll be sorry.

eta: a couple of reviews in case you want more substance to the rec:
http://www.newsarama.com/tv/060816-MiddlmanReview.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/arts/television/23man.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
.

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