New Genetic Clues to the Mystery of Your Giant Brain
Big-brained scientists have found the mechanism that may have allowed their brains (and all humans') to get so big. Hosted by: Stefan Chin Head to ...
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[♪INTRO] I don’t like to brag, but I’ve got a pretty big brain. And so do you. Compared to gorillas and orangutans — apes that are about our size — our brains are three times as massive. That extra size is likely a big part of what lets us us fly to the moon, write piano concertos, and make YouTube videos. But exactly how we got these bigger brains has puzzled scientists for a long time. Like, what happened, genetically, to make a more neuron-packed brain? Well, we may finally have a clue. Two teams of American and European researchers announced yesterday in the journal Cell that they’ve identified a gene that helps increase the number of neurons in brains — and it’s only in humans. The gene is called NOTCH2NL, and it’s not just in our genomes once, but three times. One of the...
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[♪INTRO] I don’t like to brag, but I’ve got a pretty big brain. And so do you. Compared to gorillas and orangutans — apes that are about our size — our brains are three times as massive. That extra size is likely a big part of what lets us us fly to the moon, write piano concertos, and make YouTube videos. But exactly how we got these bigger brains has puzzled scientists for a long time. Like, what happened, genetically, to make a more neuron-packed brain? Well, we may finally have a clue. Two teams of American and European researchers announced yesterday in the journal Cell that they’ve identified a gene that helps increase the number of neurons in brains — and it’s only in humans. The gene is called NOTCH2NL, and it’s not just in our genomes once, but three times. One of the...
