What Makes The Human Brain Different From Animals

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2. Countdowns

Acme 10 things that make humans special

A crowd of people cheering. But what makes humans so special and unique compared with the animal kingdom? (Prototype credit: Epitome Source via Getty Images)

Humans are unusual animals by whatever stretch of the imagination. Our special beefcake and abilities, such as large brains and opposable thumbs, have enabled united states to change our world dramatically and even launch off the planet. There are likewise odd things about us that are, well, just special compared with the rest of the fauna kingdom. So what exactly makes united states and so special? Some things we accept for granted might surprise you.

1. Speech

Speech and communication is an important human being trait. (Image credit: RgStudio via Getty Images)

No one enjoys a good gab session similar humans. But why can't apes, our closest living relatives, talk like us? Afterwards all, the shape and function of the larynx and vocal tract are fairly similar across primates, comparative studies have plant (opens in new tab).

To answer this question, look no further than the encephalon.

Primates tend to accept a wider vocal repertoire when 2 features of the brain — the cortical association areas that control voluntary command over behavior, and the brainstem nuclei involved in control of muscles governing song production — are larger, a 2018 study in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience (opens in new tab) found. In humans, these features are larger than in other primates.

"In simple terms, primates with bigger cortical clan areas tended to brand more sounds," study co-researcher Jacob Dunn, an associate professor of evolutionary biology at Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom, wrote in The Conversation (opens in new tab). Other factors, such as genetics and the anatomy of the song tract, likely as well have an event, and inquiry into their relation to speech is ongoing.

2. Upright posture

A sculpture of Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy'due south species, shown upright. Enquiry on Lucy's anatomy suggests that she besides swung from trees. (Image credit: Dave Einsel / Stringer via Getty Images)

Humans are unique among primates because our chief mode of locomotion is walking fully upright. This fashion of moving frees our easily up for using tools. Unfortunately, the changes made in our pelvis to aid usa move on two legs, in combination with babies with large brains, makes homo childbirth unusually unsafe compared with the residual of the animal kingdom.

Unlike other primates, humans have a lumbar bend in the lower back, which helps united states maintain our rest as we stand up and walk, but information technology also leaves us vulnerable to lower back pain and strain, Alive Science previously reported.

3. Nakedness

A female person chimp receiving a piggy-back from her handler. Humans appear to have less hair than other apes. (Image credit: RollingEarth via Getty Images)

We expect naked compared with our hairier ape cousins. Surprisingly, however, a foursquare inch of man pare, on boilerplate, possesses every bit many hair-producing follicles as a chimpanzee's (Pan troglodytes) skin, a 2018 report in the Journal of Human Evolution (opens in new tab) found. It's only that humans frequently have thinner, shorter, lighter hairs on most of our bodies than most primates practice, so it's easy to recall of united states of america as "naked."

So, why are humans covered with brusque, most invisible hair? Nigh 2 million years ago, an adaptation caused members of the genus Human to miniaturize torso pilus, while another accommodation increased the number of eccrine sweat glands, which most mammals have only on their palms and the soles of their anxiety, Live Scientific discipline previously reported. These adaptations made information technology easier for Homo to cool off while running long distances because of the infrequent ability to sweat a lot.

If humans were covered with thick hair, similar apes are, sweat would glaze the hair, which would make it harder for the sweat to evaporate, which is how sweat cools us off. It's a good thing nosotros have miniaturized hair; it makes cooling off a breeze.

Fun fact about hair: Even though we don't seem to have much, it apparently helps us find parasites, co-ordinate to a 2011 written report in the journal Biological science Letters (opens in new tab).

iv. Clothing

A style designer creating clothing. Clothing has enabled humans to survive in colder conditions. (Image credit: Vladimir Vladimirov via Getty Images)

Humans may be chosen "naked apes," simply most of u.s. habiliment clothing, a characteristic that makes us unique in the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees take been documented adorning themselves with items — i wild chimp wore a knotted skin "necklace" fabricated from the leftovers of a slain cherry colobus monkey, a 1998 report establish (opens in new tab), while a convict chimp in Zambia (opens in new tab) started wearing grass "earrings" that she had draped over her ears, a way trend that spread to her beau chimps — but these adornments didn't protect or insulate the chimps from the elements like human clothes practice.

The development of human clothing has fifty-fifty influenced the development of other species — trunk lice (Pediculus humanus humanus), unlike all other kinds, cling to wear, non hair.

We've besides invented clothing for animals, who, truth be told, don't always relish getting dressed upwardly.

5. Extraordinary brains

Our extraordinary brains set u.s. apart from all other animals on the planet. (Image credit: janiecbros via Getty Images)

Without a dubiousness, the human trait that sets us uttermost apart from the animate being kingdom is our extraordinary encephalon. One of the man brain'due south nigh prized regions is the overdeveloped cerebral cortex; information technology represents over 80% of our brain mass and is thought to contain 100 billion neurons, according to a 2009 study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (opens in new tab). The cerebral cortex is associated with complex, higher thinking, such as decision-making, executive command, emotional regulation and language. Even though the human brain makes up near 2% of body weight, information technology consumes more 25% of our body's overall energy, a 2018 study in the Journal of Human being Development (opens in new tab) reported.

Humans don't take the largest brains in the world — those belong to sperm whales. All the same the homo brain, weighing just about 3 pounds (ane.iii kilograms) in adults, gives u.s. the ability to reason and think on our anxiety beyond the capabilities of the rest of the creature kingdom.

vi. Hands

Our hands tin be used for a huge range of activities. (Image credit: PeopleImages via Getty Images)

Contrary to common misconceptions, humans are not the only animals to possess opposable thumbs — about primates do. (And unlike humans, the residual of the not bad apes even take opposable big toes on their feet.) What makes humans unique is how we tin bring our thumbs all the way across the mitt to our ring and piffling fingers. In other words, our opposable thumbs are much longer than other primate thumbs, according to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York (opens in new tab).

Our long thumbs and their ability to easily affect other fingers helps united states firmly grasp and manipulate objects. We also have fine muscle control, meaning we tin can do wildly different activities with our hands, such every bit throw a curveball or concord a pen to sign our names, according to the AMNH.

7. Fire

Burn down helped our ancestors bring a semblance of twenty-four hours to the nighttime. (Image credit: photoschmidt via Getty Images)

Humans' ability to control fire brought a semblance of day to night, helping our ancestors to see in an otherwise dark globe and keep nocturnal predators at bay. The warmth of the flames also helped people stay warm in common cold atmospheric condition, enabling u.s.a. to alive in cooler areas. And of course it gave united states of america cooking, which some researchers suggest influenced homo development — cooked foods are easier to chew and digest, perhaps contributing to reductions in human tooth and gut size.

There is prove that humans used fire every bit far back as 1 million years agone, simply archaeological evidence shows it became more than widespread in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Centre East virtually 400,000 years ago, Alive Scientific discipline previously reported.

8. Blushing

Only humans chroma, which may be a result of our advanced emotional intelligence. (Image credit: STEEX via Getty Images)

Humans are the merely species known to blush, a behavior Charles Darwin chosen "the virtually peculiar and the most human of all expressions." It remains uncertain why people blush, involuntarily revealing our innermost emotions (though we practise know how information technology works).

From an evolutionary perspective, peradventure blushing signals that someone has messed upwards but is acknowledging their mistake to avoid a confrontation. It could also be an indicator of emotional intelligence, Ray Crozier, an honorary professor at Cardiff University'due south School of Social Sciences in the United Kingdom, told the BBC (opens in new tab).

"A prerequisite for embarrassment is to be able to feel how others feel — you accept to be empathetic, intelligent to the social state of affairs," Crozier said.

nine. Long childhoods

Children take long childhoods and are cared for by their parents for many years. (Epitome credit: mixetto via Getty Images)

Humans must remain in the intendance of their parents for much longer than other living primates. For instance, humans accept nearly twice as long as chimpanzees to mature, and information technology looks like our aboriginal homo relatives, such equally the 3.2 meg-year-old australopithecine Lucy and a 1.6 million-year-old Homo erectus boy, reached machismo faster than modernistic humans do, Science magazine reported (opens in new tab).

The question and so is why exercise modern humans take so long to mature, when it might make more evolutionary sense to grow as fast as possible to have more offspring? The explanation may be our big brains, especially its high number of cortical neurons; other animals with large numbers of neurons in the cognitive cortex, such as some birds and mammals, also accept long childhoods and extensive longevity, a 2018 study in the Journal of Comparative Neurology (opens in new tab) found.

"It makes sense that the more neurons yous accept in the cortex, the longer information technology should accept a species to reach that point where information technology's non simply physiologically mature, only also mentally capable of being independent," Suzana Herculano-Houzel, author of the 2018 report and an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, said in a statement (opens in new tab). "The delay also gives those species with more cortical neurons more than time to acquire from experience, as they interact with the environment."

10. Life after children

Humans alive beyond the point where they tin have children. (Paradigm credit: wundervisuals via Getty Images)

Most animals reproduce until they die, including the frisky marsupials known as dusky antechinuses (Antechinus vandycki), whose males mate in a marathon frenzy until they drop dead, as well as many species of octopus, whose males die before long after mating and whose females dice after disposed to their eggs.

But in humans, females can survive long after ceasing reproduction. This might exist due to the social bonds seen in humans — in extended families, grandparents tin assist ensure the success of their families long after they have passed the historic period when they themselves tin accept children. The so-called "grandmother result" is real; an analysis of births and deaths between 1731 and 1890 in Republic of finland showed that babies had an increased chance of survival if their maternal grandmothers were betwixt 50 and 75 years quondam, likely because the grandmas helped with kid rearing, a 2009 study in the journal Current Biology (opens in new tab) constitute.

Editor's Note: Originally published in 2011. Updated in March 2016 and February 2022.

Additional resources

• Learn more nearly man evolution at The Smithsonian's Human Origins Plan (opens in new tab)
• Peruse the latest findings at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (opens in new tab)
• Read the latest anthropology news written by scientists around the world at The Conversation (opens in new tab).

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Fitch, Due west.T. Trends in Cognitive Sciences (opens in new tab), 2000

Dunn, J.C., "Why apes can't talk: our study suggests they've got the vox just not the brains (opens in new tab)" The Conversation, Aug. ten, 2018

Kamberov, Y.G. et al. Journal of Homo Development (opens in new tab), 2018.

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McGrew, Westward.C., Marchant, L.F., Pan Africa News (opens in new tab), 1998

Dye, L., "Did a Chimp Invent Jewelry? (opens in new tab)" ABC News, 2014

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Jawabri G.H., Sharma Due south. Physiology, Cerebral Cortex Functions (opens in new tab), NIH Books, 2022

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Gibbons, A. "Neandertals, like humans, may take had long childhoods (opens in new tab)," 2017

Herculano-Houzel, South. The Journal of Comparative Neurology (opens in new tab), 2018

Wolf, A. "Why does it take humans so long to mature compared to other animals? Wait to your neurons! (opens in new tab)" Vanderbilt University Enquiry News, 2018

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Laura is an editor at Live Scientific discipline. She edits Life'due south Little Mysteries and reports on general scientific discipline, including archaeology and animals. Her piece of work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Club of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly paper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's caste in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's caste in science writing from NYU.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html

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