Global warming could affect human brain size – study
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Climate change that has occurred over the past 50,000 years is likely affecting the size of the human brain – it is shrinking. This is stated in an article by Jeff Morgan Stiebel, a scientist from the Natural History Museum in California, Science Alert reports. An American scientist studied information about the sizes of the skulls of 298 representatives of the human race, born in different periods during the last 50 thousand years. Depending on the body size of people who lived in different territories, the scientist found out how people’s brains changed depending on the climate. Photo: AndrewLozovyi/Depositphotos The scientist divided the samples into separate groups, depending on their age: 100 years, 5 thousand, 10 thousand and 15 thousand years. The scientist then compared the brain sizes of people who lived in four different climatic periods and found that when the climate became warmer, the average size of the human brain decreased compared to what it was in a cooler period. During the Holocene warming (the modern era of warming that spans the post-glacial period), average human brain size decreased by about 10.7%, he said. “The human brain changes thousands of years after the climate change. This is especially noticeable after the last ice age, about 17,000 years later,” said Jeff Morgan Stiebel. His research also states that, in addition to air temperature, brain shrinkage is also influenced by humidity and rainfall. It is noted that the results of the study may indicate that global warming may affect the physiology of people. We previously reported that the brain can age from excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption. Read also: A person’s native language can affect their brain – research
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