Researchers in Shanghai have suggested that cooking may have been the cause
of mankind's great cognitive leap forward 150,000 years ago. Eureka! Now we
know why chefs get so famous, we can explain all those television programs.
They are the onlie begetters of human superiority and braininess.
Researcher Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology
in Shanghai notes that the sudden increase in brain-size that took place about
two million years ago was made possible by better diet. But he points out that
the larger brain didn't make us comparatively smarter until the cognitive spurt
150,000 years ago.
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, adding that definitive claims
of causation are premature.
Many researchers have posited the development of the group as being both cause
and effect of the increase in human brain-size and have speculated on the importance
of hunters, 'the Fathers' (law-givers), story-tellers (historians), shamans
(priests) and other specialized types of group member. How could we have forgotten
the cooks, the most important of all?
Perhaps now society will begin to recognize the crucial part played by our
cooks, instead of relegating them to popular television and the pages of Hello
magazine.
Arise, Sir Gordon! An OM for Jamie, please! And look, here comes Dame Nigella,
pan in hand.
