evolutionary

Throughout our evolutionary history, humanity has faced a do-or-die juggling act — reap the benefits of ultraviolet rays from the Sun, without being destroyed by them.

So while corvid brains travelled a very different evolutionary path than primate brains, it was still one that brought them sophisticated cognition.

The ability to form habits is one of the most important and amazing evolutionary tactics that the human race has come up with and all primates and almost all animals for that matter.

If these particular traits are also heritable, that is, passed from parent to offspring, then there will be a reproductive advantage and that’s what modern evolutionary theory defines as fitness.

When our ancestors in the Upper Paleolithic acquired greater access to the REM sleep state, both during sleep and during waking consciousness, it helped to fuel the onset of cumulative cultural evolutionary processes.