Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Source
Why Fire Makes Us Human
Harvard biologist Richard
Wranghams lifetime
research on the benefits of
cooked foods.
Adler, Jerry. "Why Fire Makes
Us Human." Smithsonian.com.
Smithsonian Institution, June
2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
http://www.smithsonianmag.
com/science-nature/why-
fire-makes-us-human-
72989884/
Food For Thought: Meat
Based Diet Made Us
Smarter
Wenner-Gren Foundation
director Leslie Aiello from
NYC
Joyce, Christopher. "Food For
Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made
Us Smarter." NPR. NPR, 02 Aug.
Annotation
In this article, Wrangham
talks exclusively about the
benefits that fire brings to
mankind. More specifically,
the benefits of having
cooked foods. Humans have
evolved from hundreds of
thousands of years old. The
modern humans are used to
eating cooked foods- we
even prefer it over raw
foods. Cooked foods is the
obvious choice for
intelligence animals like us
humans. A main reason is
that more nutrients is
absorbed while the food is
digested in our digestive
tract. Raw foods on the other
hand, absorbs on average
30% nutrients as opposed to
cooked foods. The residual
foods all goes to the
microbes that lives in our
bodies. The reason that we
are different from primates is
that we spend our days being
productive while the
monkeys spend 1/3 (7-8
hours) of their day just
chewing.
Author Leslie Aiello focuses
how the meat diet improved
our nutrient intake. As
humans evolved from
thousands of decades ago,
there was one
anthropological find that
suggested that primitive
humans ate meant- raw meat.
Two to three million years
Thoughts/Connection
s
Comprehending this logic that
cooked foods has way more
nutrients than raw foods is a
no-brainer. Its obvious that
cooked foods is the mankinds
choices when it comes to fuel.
Moreover, the obvious fact is-
cooked foods tastes way better
than raw foods, with the
exception of fruits. I find
credibility in Dr. Wranghams
findings with because his
research seems so concrete
when I see the prove every
day. There are restaurants, and
people love cooked foods.
First of all, Wrangham is
present in this article as well. I
feel like Im going to
memorize all of his quotes by
the time Im done researching
this topic. Anyhow, this find
does make sense; however, Im
not sure where the tapeworm
was found to make the
conclusion was inside of the
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
http://www.npr.org/2010/08/
02/128849908/food-for-
thought-meat-based-diet-
made-us-smarter
What Is So Special About
The Human Brain? Ted
Talk
Neuroscientist Suzana
Herculano-Houzel
Herculano-Houzel, Suzana.
"What Is so Special about the
Human Brain?" Suzana
Herculano-Houzel: What Is so
Special about the Human Brain?
| TED Talk | TED.com. Ted Talk,
n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
https://www.ted.com/talks/su
zana_herculano_houzel_wha
t_is_so_special_about_the_h
uman_brain
ago is when incisions started
to appear on animal bones.
Not the cuts that predators
make, but the precise cuts
that only tools can make.
Another conclusion is from
fossils of tapeworm. The
only tapeworms that lived
back then were inside of wild
dogs and hyenas; this means
that humans used to
scavenge raw meats from
animal carcasses like hyenas.
This is somewhat disturbing;
however, meats are packed
with proteins and fats. This
meant that humans were able
to spend less time eating and
more time being productive.
As humans had more time,
they started to make tools
and socialize- these two
factors contributed a lot to
the evolution of todays
modern humans.
In this fascinating Ted Talk,
Houzel talked about the
fundamental principles of the
size of brains. The more we
weigh the more we need to
eat; the more we need to eat
the more time we spend
eating. Since neurons are
possibly the most expensive
body parts in the entire
animal kingdom; bigger
animals cant afford to have
brains packed with neurons.
This leads to the question:
why are humans special? To
answer that, Suzana
answered by giving the
conclusion that cooking
humans. But meat boosting
humans daily nutrients does
make sense. As people started
to build fire and cook, meats
couldve made great
contribution to primitive
humans daily caloric intake. It
is true that cooked meats are
delicious and nutritious.
However, overcooked meats
can lead to cancer and other
illnesses. So we need to be
cautious with cooked foods.
Cooking is brought up again
and again in human evolution.
The fact is, cooked foods
provides more calories than
raw foods. I have said that
countless times but I will
repeat them as many times as I
need. Neurons are the basic
units in the brain that provides
cognitive functions. Even for
basic recognition, group of
neurons called a neuronal
ensemble that fires a signal and
lets us know that a ball is
round or sharks are dangerous.
Without neurons, the mankind
would still be chewing on
fruits and nuts for 9 hours a
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Guns Germs and Steel
Book of human evolution by
Jared Diamond
DIAMOND, JARED. GUNS,
GERMS, AND STEEL: The
Fates of Human Societies. Place
of Publication Not Identified: W
W NORTON, 2017. Print.
https://www.amazon.com/Gu
ns-Germs-Steel-Fates-
Societies/dp/0393317552
(Link for book if Ms. Ingram
is interested)
Why did humans prevail?
Natalie Wolchover
Wolchover, Natalie. "Why Did
Humans Prevail?" Live
provides more nutrients from
foods. Cooking breaks down
the food before it goes into
your mouth so theres less
time spent chewing and
therefore less energy
required to eat. These
findings make sense
completely because no
animal can spend half of
their day eating just to keep
up with their required caloric
intake and support a large
number of neurons at the
same time.
In this book, Diamond
discusses the importance of
food in our societal
development. A basic
understanding is that food
has the power to construct
communities, kingdoms, and
even countries. When a
community has enough food,
different people can
specialize in different
disciplines. Because there
are farmers who will feed the
civilians, people dont have
to feed themselves. When is
enough food to supply
everyone, a system begin to
develop. A monarchy rises
when theres a leader who
decides how food will be
distributed. At that point is
when a kingdom is
unraveled.
In this intriguing article, the
author Natalie Wolchover
talks about the advantages
that homo sapiens (us) had
over the other species of
day. Cooking provides so
much more calories; the ironic
thing is that cooked food has
become such a health problem
that people are resorting back
to raw foods.
Food is obviously crucial to
mankind. People need food to
survive. When theres a surplus
in food, communities are
formed; eventually, kingdoms
and societies are formed. Food
has all the power to raise
skyscrapers out of the ground.
People need fuel to survive,
and cooked food provides that
fuel. Bread is so crucial to the
ancient European world. Bread
was a currency in the Roman
empire. The emperor would
give out bread as a way of
advertisement for his
government. Eating is how
people evolved, and we
shouldnt overlook that.
I do have some concerns with
this article; however, I do
completely agree with the
author on the evolutionary
benefits our brains brought us.
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Science. Space.com, 6 June
2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2017.
http://www.livescience.com/
20798-humans-prevailed-
neanderthals.html
Origins of Agriculture
Wayne Rasmussen
Rasmussen, Wayne. "Origins
of Agriculture." Encyclopdia
Britannica. Encyclopdia
Britannica, Inc., 3 Mar. 2017.
hominins (primal humans & It seemed like the author was
monkeys). Around 60,000 slightly desperate on finding
years ago, a few species of evidence that humans were
primal people emerged out actually more intelligent than
of Africa. Us homo sapiens the Neanderthals due to a
being one of the few. larger frontal cortex. Even
Although we werent the though this evidence seem
strongest, we were the doubtful, I agree with the rest
smartest. Even though of the article with the fact that
Neanderthals had been more our abilities to process food
fit and had bigger brains than gave us an evolutionary
us, homo sapiens had a advantage to survival.
larger frontal lobe. The
frontal cortex is associated
with decision-making, which
place our specie at an
advantage. This would
suggest brains won out over
brawn, and that rather than
destroying our enemies in
some epic battle, our
ancestors may simply have
been savvier survivors,
steadily growing our
numbers while our burlier
brethren met their demise.
The author claims that our
survival was made possible
due to our ability to chew
food and process food for the
young. This allowed
maximum energy absorbed
into our bodies without
wasting time and energy by
chewing for a prolong period
of time.
In this article, the author The way that the author
Wayne Rasmussen focuses describes the agricultural
on the agricultural evolution evolution is quite fascinating.
that occurred approximately The evolution of something so
10,000 years ago. Around common today isnt something
10,000 years ago, humans that were typically mindful of
started to cultivate crops and on a daily basis. Being able to
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Web. 16 Mar. 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/
contributor/Wayne-D-
Rasmussen/2415
Agricultural Revolution
Editors of the Encyclopedia
Britannica
The Editors of Encyclopdia
Britannica. "Agricultural
Revolution." Encyclopdia
Britannica. Encyclopdia
Britannica, Inc., 04 Dec. 2015.
Web. 16 Mar. 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/t
opic/agricultural-revolution
domesticate animals. These understand this process
crops were used to feed the occurring a long time ago
human popular. The sudden allows us to think on a
abundance of food allowed different perspective about
the population to increase how food came to be.
rapidly. The domesticated Obviously, with the increasing
animals only increase the abundance of food, cooking
rate which the crops were became more necessary and
cultivated. Most animals widespread. Agriculture
were used to plow fields. mainly cultivated crops such as
Some animals were also used grains and rice. These foods
as livestock for nutritious need to be cooked to be eaten
meat. These allowed people easily.
to evolve to have smaller
teeth to process food more
efficiently. The agricultural
evolution allowed food to be
distributed to everyone and
allowed the creation of
communities. More food
means better nutrition, and
cooking is obviously
embedded into the human
culture at this point. So the
agricultural evolution just
accelerated the human
evolution into what we are
today.
In this article, it talks about The agricultural revolution is
the agricultural revolution as just another example that
opposed to the agricultural shows the importance of food
evolution in the last article. to the human society. The fact
The agricultural revolution is that people need food to
occurred in Great Britain in survive, and cooked food
the 18th century. It provides the most nutrient
transformed the traditional possible.
way of cultivating crops and
managing livestock. Now
there is a system to plant
different crops to avoid
fields drying out from
planting the same crops year
after year. So the farmers
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Why Humans Run the World
Yuval Noah Harari
Harari, Yuval Noah. "Why
Humans Run the
World." Ideas.ted.com. Ted
Talk, 07 Dec. 2015. Web. 16
Mar. 2017.
http://ideas.ted.com/why-
humans-run-the-world/
Introduction to Human
Evolution Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian's National Museum of
came up with the Norfolk
four-course system that
allowed four different crops
to be planted during the
course of 4 years. This
allowed even more food to
become available to the
general. Unfortunately,
democracy did not exist at
this point in time, so the
monarchs had full control of
agriculture. This revolution
means allowed the industrial
evolution to begin because
more people were fed.
In this article, the history I do not have a long
professor Yuval Noah Harari explanation for this article
talks about the dual entity because itll be one of my side
that mankind utilize to gain articles to use for evidence. I
an edge on the rest of the found this Ted Talk to be
animals on this world. absolutely fascinating, and I
Humans have a the ability to suggest anyone whose curious
work cooperatively; its an to give it a shot. Although the
ability that no other animal author doesnt directly talk
possesses. Humans can work about how cooking helps
cooperatively without a people to survive, he does
mutual relationship between discuss the qualities that
any two individuals. people possess that allows for
Everyone believes in a norm, cooperation which in terms
and this norm keeps means more production of
everyone in check. resources.
Imagination keeps people in
check because everyone
believes in a story created by
other people. This allows a
order to be developed
without chaos roaming
across the world.
In this general introduction This is a good source to have
to evolution, the Smithsonian for this topic in general.
Museum of Natural History Because my topic is on
gives an insight into the evolution of the human race,
Peiyu Lu Revised May 1, 2017
Natural History. "Introduction to
Human Evolution | The
Smithsonian Institution's Human
Origins Program." Introduction to
Human Evolution. Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural
History, 01 Mar. 2010. Web. 10
Apr. 2017. Smithsonian's National
Museum of Natural History.
"Introduction to Human Evolution
| The Smithsonian Institution's
Human Origins
Program." Introduction to Human
Evolution. Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History, 01
Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.
http://humanorigins.si.edu/ed
ucation/introduction-human-
evolution
A New Theory Explains
How Consciousness Evolved
Michael Graziano
Graziano, Michael. "A New
Theory Explains How
Consciousness Evolved." The
Atlantic. Atlantic Media
Company, 06 June 2016.
Web. 11 Apr. 2017.
https://www.theatlantic.com/
science/archive/2016/06/how
-consciousness-
evolved/485558/
evidence of the earliest so this article will provide
human evolution fossils. more technical information for
Early primates have been my writing.
around for around 2 million
years, but our human
ancestors have only been
around for 200,000 years.
This article also talks about
how people have evolved to
different genus and
eventually specie. There are
videos and 3D guides that
shows the different types of
primate skull that compares
to the modern human skull.
Us modern humans
flourished because of our
brains carrying large number
of neurons. This doesnt
mean all big animals are
smart, just the ones with
more neurons have more
advantage.
In this article, the author Humans have been around for
Michael Graziano discusses millions of years. During this
the Attention Schema Theory period of time, we have
(AST). Consciousness is developed consciousness. Its
theorized to have evolved for the ability to sense ones own
the past half a billion years. existence. Us humans virtually
Every organism has some have control over every other
sort of consciousness that species of animal on Earth. In
allows them tolive. Every doing so, our brains need a
neuron is fighting for control tremendous amount of energy
of the brain, so whatever we to fuel every neuron within
do depends on all the itself. Food plays a critical role
neurons in our brains. Each in our brain development.
neuron More nutrients allows more
brain activity and
development.