John Morgan Allman of Caltech has spent 30 years researching the brain,
studying the visual cortex, mortality and brain size, and the processes of
evolution. Here, in Evolving Brains, he shares his work as he takes us from
brain basics to the puzzle of why our brains are smaller than those of early
modern humans. Perhaps, he says, we’ve domesticated ourselves—the brain of
a domesticated species is generally smaller than that of its wild cousin or
ancestor. Published by Scientific American Library/W. H. Freeman, $34.95,
ISBN 0716750767.
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