Author Solanum
In the 19th century, many great scientists emerged in the West, including the British biologist Charles Darwin. Speaking of Darwin, many people think of "theory of evolution" for the first time, because this theory is the scientific result of his five-year voyage around the world with the Beagle. During the voyage, Darwin went to different places in the world to investigate the flora, fauna and geography of these places, and finally came up with the theory of evolution. The core point of the evolution theory of
is that all species on the earth evolved from the earliest species, and this evolution process is very long. Darwin also used this theory to explain the origin of mankind, but it was questioned and criticized in Europe in the 19th century. Most people today agree with the theory of evolution, because humans and chimpanzees are similar in many ways.
Some people still question the theory of evolution. Since all living things change in order to adapt to the environment, what kind of changes are human beings making?
What evidence is there to prove that humans are still evolving? The most direct evidence of
is that the human brain has undergone significant changes. Paleoanthropologists compared the brain conditions of ancient Homo sapiens and modern Homo sapiens and found that the brain capacity of modern Homo sapiens is larger than that of ancient Homo sapiens, which shows that the brain of Homo sapiens is moving towards capacity in the process of evolution. The general direction has evolved. Some scholars believe that the reason why there are so many folds in the human cortex is because of the increase in brain capacity in human ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago.
However, the volume of the skull did not increase with the increase of brain capacity, resulting in the brain only growing in a limited space, and the outer structure was squeezed to varying degrees, so folds were formed. Secondly, the average human body temperature has also changed. Julie Passonnet, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, has led a team to study the changes in human body temperature in different historical periods. The team has been recording the body temperature of Americans in a region every year since 2000.
then collected the body temperature records of soldiers enlisted during the American Civil War. After calculating the weighted average, the researchers found that the average body temperature of Americans in a certain area from 2000 to 2010 was about 0.05 degrees Celsius lower than that during the Civil War. Regarding this, Julie believes that, as a whole, it may be that the difference in the living environment of the people causes the difference in average body temperature. For example, in the face of cold weather, people now have more ways to warm and keep warm, so the temperature regulation mechanism in the body does not need to generate more heat.
In addition, the researchers of Julie's team also believe that from a physiological point of view, the average body temperature of the human body should continue to evolve. As for why the normal body temperature of the human body will gradually drop, they have not yet come to a conclusion. In addition, some scientists found through investigations that two or three hundred years ago, humans were not so good at digesting milk, but now most people show an increasingly common lactose tolerance to milk.
In addition to the above-mentioned phenomena, there are many evidences that can prove that humans have been evolving, but the evolution process is very long. It takes a long time to look back and find that the original human body has occurred. So many changes. In the final analysis, these changes in the human body are all to adapt to the environment. This is the value conveyed in the theory of evolution, that is, "things compete with natural selection and the fittest survive."
What might human beings look like in the future?
Since humans are still evolving, I believe everyone will be curious about the future of humans. What will humans look like in the future? Regarding this problem, netizens on the Internet have opened their own brains. Some people say that because humans spend more and more time with electronic communication products, ten fingers have degenerated, leaving only a few commonly used fingers. Some people also think that because humans have been working with their heads down for a long time or playing with mobile phones, the spine has been bent irreversibly, and in the future, humans will buckle.
These statements are quite scary, and they describe the appearance of human beings in the future. But if we think about the reality, we will find that we do spend a lot of time on mobile phones and computers, and we keep our heads down when working and looking at mobile phones. For this reason, a foreign company collected the guesses that have received the most likes on the Internet, and then combined these guesses to build a 3D model to simulate the appearance of humans in the future, and named it Mindy.
Mindy is a female. From the pictures above, we can see that her appearance is quite different from modern people. On the whole, her back did show a rickety appearance, and her whole body tilted forward slightly when she stood. From the beginning of her facial features, we will find that the protruding back of her head is very obvious, and the eye area also has double eyelids. For such changes, the model creators believe that it may be because humans will use the brain more frequently in the future.
The time spent watching electronic screens at the same time has generally increased. In order to reduce the impact of blue light on the eyes of the screen, human eyes gradually grow a second layer of eyelids to block part of the blue light. Let's take a look at the hand again. It is obvious that the fingers cannot be fully straightened. In their natural state, they have a curved handshake shape. This may also be caused by long-term typing on the keyboard or holding the phone. The image of Mindy conforms to most netizens' guesses on the image of humans in the future, and it also reflects modern people's concerns about future evolution.
If you think that the model produced by this company is not scientific, it just combines the overall guesses of netizens, and has no scientific basis, then the next simulation study led by Dr. Alan Kavan in genetics Will you agree? It is understood that Alan led his students to study the human appearance from the 21st century to 100,000 years later, and used computers to create human appearances in the next 20,000, 60,000 and 100,000 years, as shown in the figure below.
From the figure, we can see that the facial features of humans have not changed significantly in the first 20,000 years, but by the 60,000 years, the human eyes have become significantly larger, and by the 100,000 years, human eyes are like cartoons. The eyes of the characters are the same. Why will human eyes undergo such changes in the future? In this regard, Alan believes that this is related to the brightness of the human living environment in the future. The lower the brightness, the pupils of human eyes will automatically enlarge to receive more light.
When the pupils are enlarged to the limit, the only way to get more light is to enlarge the eyes. Of course, in the future, human beings may develop towards the characters portrayed in science fiction movies, that is, using robotic arms and chips to equip the human body to make the human body stronger.
