pocketlizard

This is a timely and interesting link:

Is political orientation wired in the brain?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “hard-wired”, but political orientation seems that it might be at least partly related to brain hardware. I wonder which way round the causality goes? If older people tend to be more conservative, and us young-uns more liberal, is that because our brains change as we get older, making us more set in our ways? Or do our brains follow our ideas and thinking patterns? I hope it’s the second option - I’d hate to think that I’m doomed to become a Liberal voter!

Here is another interesting link, about how we fueled the development of our large brains:

With potatoes!

They think that developing the ability to digest starchy foods made new and esily-digested food sources available to our ancestors, making it easier for them to get the energy they needed, and a bit over for developing and running a bigger brain. Nifty. And groups which had to rely more on starchy foods developed multiple genes for making enzymes to digest them, so that they could eat more of it. Evolution is so cool!