水果促進大腦的進化:發育得更大大綱
Humans likely developed large and powerful brains, researchers said Monday, with the help of what is today the simplest of snacks: fruit. Eating fruit was a key step up from the most basic of foodstuffs, such as leaves, and provided the energy needed to grow bulkier brains, the scientists argued.
研究人員於週一表示：有了當今時代最簡單零食--水果的幫助，人類有可能發育出更大、更強的大腦。科學家說，吃水果是從吃最基本的食物（如葉子）中邁出的重要一步，並且還提供了發育大腦所需的能量。"That's how we got these crazy huge brains," said the study's corresponding author Alex Decasien, a researcher at New York University. "We have blown up the quality of our food that we are eating." The study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution looked at the staple foods of over 140 species of primates, and assumed their diets haven't changed much over the course of recent evolution.
"因此我們的大腦才如此瘋狂的巨大，"紐約大學的研究員兼本研究的通訊作者Alex Decasien說道。"我們已經放大了所吃食物的質量。"該研究刊登在《自然生態與進化》期刊上，研究了140多種靈長類動物的主食，並假設在近期的進化過程中，它們的飲食變化不大。According to the research, the animals which feast on fruit have brains that are about 25 percent bigger than those filling their bellies primarily with leaves. The results call into question the theory that has prevailed since the mid-1990s, which says bigger brains developed out of the need to survive and reproduce in complex social groups.
研究表明：吃水果的動物的大腦要比主要以吃葉子爲生的動物大25%左右。20世紀90年代中期開始盛行這樣一種理論：在複雜的社會羣體中，出於生存和繁殖的需要，更大的大腦才得以形成，該研究結果則質疑了這一理論。
Decasien said the challenges of living in a group could be part of getting smarter, but found no link between the complexity of primates' social lives and the size of their grey matter. What did correlate strongly with brain size was eating fruit. Foods such as fruit contain more energy than basic sources like leaves, thus creating the additional fuel needed to evolve a bigger brain.
Decasien說羣體生活的挑戰可能會使靈長動物更聰明，但卻與它們社會生活的複雜性以及大腦灰質大小毫無關係。與大腦大小相關的是吃水果。水果等食物含有的能量多於樹葉等基本食物，因此能額外促進大腦進化得更大。
At the same time, remembering which plants produce fruit, where they are, and how to break them open could also help a primate grow a bigger brain. A larger brain also needs more fuel to keep it running. "We've heard that fact saying is two percent of our body weight, but it takes up 25 percent of our energy," Decasien said.
同時，記住哪種植物長水果、位置在哪、如何打開這些水果也可能幫助靈長動物發育更大的大腦。更大的大腦也需要更多的燃料才能運轉。"我們已聽說過這樣的事實：大腦的重量只有我們體重的2%，但其需要的能量卻達25%，"Decasien說道。"It's a crazy expensive organ." While the study challenges some of the orthodoxy of how our brains evolved, the research is likely to continue. "I feel confident that their study will refocus and reinvigorate research seeking to explain cognitive complexity in primates and other mammals," wrote Chris Venditti, a researcher at the University of Reading in Britain in a comment on the study, also published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. "But many questions remain," he added.
"這是個瘋狂的、高價的器官。"雖然研究質疑了一些正統觀念，比如我們的大腦是如何進化的，但很有可能會繼續開展下去。"我相信他們的研究將重新聚焦、重振那些試圖解釋靈長類動物和其它哺乳動物認知複雜性的研究，"英國雷丁大學的研究員克里斯·文迪蒂在評論該研究時寫道，該評論也發表在《自然生態和進化》期刊上。"但還有很多問題有待研究，"他補充說。
