Evolutionary Delicacies

The story may sound familiar: primitive human survives, adapts, uses tools, makes fire, advanced human beings emerge. That's evolution, right?

Stephen Cunnane of Sherbrooke University has a different idea of how evolution works. In a presentation at the AAAS conference in St. Louis last week, Cunnane proposed that humans evolved through expatiation rather than adaptation—in other words, luck.

Cunnane points to a "shoreline diet" as the reason for human evolution. Coastal environments provided humans with food like clams, frogs, bird eggs and fish. Because these foods were ample in amount and also rich in iodine, Cunnane believes they allowed primitive humans to have fat babies.

Baby fat is key to developing brains, Cunnane says, and thus evolution. Without those extra pounds, we would not be able to sate the need for docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)—a polyunsaturated fat key to brain development. Iodine is also a key brain nutrient (as today's iodine-enriched salt attests).—Tyghe Trimble

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