Posthuman Blues

Fastest-evolving human gene linked to brain boost

"We don't know exactly what it does, but the evidence is very suggestive that HAR1F is important in the development of the cerebral cortex, and that's exciting because the human cortex is three times as large as it was in our predecessors," says David Haussler, director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz, who assisted with the study.

"Something caused our brains to evolve to be much larger and have more functions than the brains of other mammals," he points out.

(Via The Daily Grail.)