Apr 29, 2026 03:43 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 29, 2026 03:44 PM by C C.)
Dogs’ brains began to shrink at least 5,000 years ago, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026...-years-ago
INTRO: It has long been known that dogs have less between their ears than wolves, but now research has suggested their brains started to get smaller at least 5,000 years ago.
Experts say the results offer fresh insights into the domestication of our canine companions. However, the findings are unlikely to explain why your spaniel will only drink from a muddy puddle: the researchers say a reduction in brain size does not mean dogs are dafter than their wolf-like ancestors.
“The way our dogs live nowadays doesn’t give them the opportunity to always express most of their intelligence,” said Dr Thomas Cucchi, first author of the study from the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “But they are extremely clever and domestication didn’t make them stupid, but made them really capable of reading us and communicating with us.”
The relationship between humans and canines is ancient, with research revealing the oldest direct genetic evidence for domestic dogs dates back more than 15,000 years. But while a reduction in brain size is typically considered a hallmark of domestication, there has long been debate over exactly when dogs ended up with smaller brains than wolves, with some experts suggesting this may have occurred early in the dog-human relationship.
However, others argue smaller brain size is not a hallmark of domestication but instead reflects the emergence of pedigree breeds in the last 200 years... (MORE - details)
Neanderthal brains measure up to ours-literally
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/...literally/
EXCERPTS: If you look at a Neanderthal skull and a Homo sapiens skull, they’re visibly different: Neanderthal skulls are lower and longer, whereas ours tend to be rounder. However, those differences probably don’t say much about the brains within them, according to a recent study, which compared MRI scans of modern people’s brains with casts of the inside of Neanderthal skulls.
The results suggest that there’s more variation in brain size among modern people than between Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo sapiens. And because brain size is actually a terrible way to predict cognitive capability, Neanderthals could have been a lot more like us than some previous studies have claimed, which definitely fits what the archaeological record tells us about how they lived. It would also mean that our species probably didn’t out-compete the Neanderthals by being smarter or more adaptable.
Years after you die, the inner vault of your skull will hold the shape of your brain; if future archaeologists make a cast of that inner space, they’ll get a neat resin model of the outer contours of your brain, called an endocast. (Sediment that filled the skull of an Australopithecus africanus child who died 2.8 million years ago did this naturally, creating an endocast that’s half rocky brain-sculpture and half sparkling crystal.) For years, researchers have studied endocasts of Neanderthal skulls, trying to piece together how their brains were different or similar to ours. And that has been a matter of some debate.
[... “The inferred differences were not put into the context of modern human populational variation in brain anatomy,” wrote Indiana University cognitive scientist P. Thomas Schoenemann and his colleagues. In that same paper, they decided to take a stab at doing so. Schoenemann and his colleagues performed the same size comparison using MRI scans of 400 modern people’s brains: 200 US residents of European descent and 200 ethnic Han Chinese people who had volunteered to be scanned as part of the Human Connectome project.
It turns out that, when it comes to brain size, the differences between our species and Neanderthals are on par with the differences within our species. For nine of the 13 regions measured, Schoenemann and his colleagues found bigger differences in volume between some modern people than the earlier study found between Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo sapiens. “Our analysis shows that Neanderthal differences in brain and cognition would fit comfortably within the range of differences seen among modern humans,” wrote Schoenemann and his colleagues.
In other words, we’re a diverse species, and the size and shape of Neanderthal brains fit into the range of that diversity (which arguably lends some support to the paleoanthropologist who argues that maybe we shouldn’t think of Neanderthals and Denisovans as separate species at all). And all of those size differences are too small to have any effect on cognitive ability, so Neanderthals could easily be on par with our species there, too... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026...-years-ago
INTRO: It has long been known that dogs have less between their ears than wolves, but now research has suggested their brains started to get smaller at least 5,000 years ago.
Experts say the results offer fresh insights into the domestication of our canine companions. However, the findings are unlikely to explain why your spaniel will only drink from a muddy puddle: the researchers say a reduction in brain size does not mean dogs are dafter than their wolf-like ancestors.
“The way our dogs live nowadays doesn’t give them the opportunity to always express most of their intelligence,” said Dr Thomas Cucchi, first author of the study from the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “But they are extremely clever and domestication didn’t make them stupid, but made them really capable of reading us and communicating with us.”
The relationship between humans and canines is ancient, with research revealing the oldest direct genetic evidence for domestic dogs dates back more than 15,000 years. But while a reduction in brain size is typically considered a hallmark of domestication, there has long been debate over exactly when dogs ended up with smaller brains than wolves, with some experts suggesting this may have occurred early in the dog-human relationship.
However, others argue smaller brain size is not a hallmark of domestication but instead reflects the emergence of pedigree breeds in the last 200 years... (MORE - details)
Neanderthal brains measure up to ours-literally
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/...literally/
EXCERPTS: If you look at a Neanderthal skull and a Homo sapiens skull, they’re visibly different: Neanderthal skulls are lower and longer, whereas ours tend to be rounder. However, those differences probably don’t say much about the brains within them, according to a recent study, which compared MRI scans of modern people’s brains with casts of the inside of Neanderthal skulls.
The results suggest that there’s more variation in brain size among modern people than between Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo sapiens. And because brain size is actually a terrible way to predict cognitive capability, Neanderthals could have been a lot more like us than some previous studies have claimed, which definitely fits what the archaeological record tells us about how they lived. It would also mean that our species probably didn’t out-compete the Neanderthals by being smarter or more adaptable.
Years after you die, the inner vault of your skull will hold the shape of your brain; if future archaeologists make a cast of that inner space, they’ll get a neat resin model of the outer contours of your brain, called an endocast. (Sediment that filled the skull of an Australopithecus africanus child who died 2.8 million years ago did this naturally, creating an endocast that’s half rocky brain-sculpture and half sparkling crystal.) For years, researchers have studied endocasts of Neanderthal skulls, trying to piece together how their brains were different or similar to ours. And that has been a matter of some debate.
[... “The inferred differences were not put into the context of modern human populational variation in brain anatomy,” wrote Indiana University cognitive scientist P. Thomas Schoenemann and his colleagues. In that same paper, they decided to take a stab at doing so. Schoenemann and his colleagues performed the same size comparison using MRI scans of 400 modern people’s brains: 200 US residents of European descent and 200 ethnic Han Chinese people who had volunteered to be scanned as part of the Human Connectome project.
It turns out that, when it comes to brain size, the differences between our species and Neanderthals are on par with the differences within our species. For nine of the 13 regions measured, Schoenemann and his colleagues found bigger differences in volume between some modern people than the earlier study found between Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo sapiens. “Our analysis shows that Neanderthal differences in brain and cognition would fit comfortably within the range of differences seen among modern humans,” wrote Schoenemann and his colleagues.
In other words, we’re a diverse species, and the size and shape of Neanderthal brains fit into the range of that diversity (which arguably lends some support to the paleoanthropologist who argues that maybe we shouldn’t think of Neanderthals and Denisovans as separate species at all). And all of those size differences are too small to have any effect on cognitive ability, so Neanderthals could easily be on par with our species there, too... (MORE - missing details)