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Having movable eyebrows – and evolving beyond the Neanderthal ridge – may have played a crucial role in early human survival.
Eyebrows, we all have them, but what are they actually for? While eyebrows help to prevent debris, sweat, and water from falling into the eye socket, they serve another important function too – and it's all to do with how they move and human connection.
[...] But our latest research may have found an answer to explain why archaic humans had such a pronounced wedge of bone over their eyes (and why modern humans don't). And it seems to be down to the fact that our highly movable eyebrows can be used to express a wide range of subtle emotions – which could have played a crucial role in human survival.
Research has already shown that humans today unconsciously raise their eyebrows briefly when they see someone at a distance to show we are not a threat. And we also lift our eyebrows to show sympathy with others – a tendency noticed by Darwin in the 19th century.
[...] The brow ridges in archaic humans also serve no obvious function in relation to chewing or other practical mechanics – a theory commonly put forward to explain protruding brow ridges. As when the ridge was taken away there was no effect on the rest of the face when biting. This means that brow ridges in archaic humans must have had a social function – most likely used to display social dominance as is seen in other primates.
For our species losing the brow ridge probably meant looking less intimidating, but by developing flatter and more vertical foreheads our species could do something very unusual – move our eyebrows in all kinds of subtle and important ways.
Although the loss of the brow ridge may have initially been driven by changes in our brain or facial reduction, it subsequently allowed our eyebrows to make many different subtle and friendly gestures to people around us.
Source: https://theconversation.com/the-evolutionary-advantage-of-having-eyebrows-94599
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @10:54PM (9 children)
Because there are only two explanations possible for the usefulness of eyebrow: chewing or expressing sympathy by raising them.
In related news, green M&Ms cause acnee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @11:09PM (4 children)
Hands are far better at making gestures across the entire ranges of subtlety and friendliness. 🖕
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @11:19PM
When one has the hands full (fondling those titties) though, one will need some extra channels of non-verbal communication.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:32AM (2 children)
Found the Italian :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 10 2018, @02:04AM (1 child)
Oddly enough, that's one of the few nationalities I can't trace my ancestry back to. I just appropriated their culture.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @02:47AM
You commie bastard!
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Reziac on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:25AM (3 children)
Someone lately showed that that the brow ridges are still there, just disguised by our flattened faces. Slope the forehead back like an animal, and the brow ridges reappear. In short, they're just a topological artifact.
Also, they seem to have failed to note that a lot of other mammals have eyebrows, just not as prominently set off by naked skin. Or more likely in the case of primitive man, completely concealed by unkempt hair.
Minirant: I'm getting quite tired of these research pronouncements that some very minor study has found THE REASON for some mystery trait that in all likelihood is just an artifact with no particular function. It's like Digging the Weans come to life.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:58AM (2 children)
Publish-or-perish metric used as a perverted incentive.
Even better if the explanation is dodgy, as this provides the opportunity to write other papers correcting the first.
Strange things happen when one started to trust metrics with their life. Like write myself a new minivan [dilbert.com] or Cobra effect [wikipedia.org].
Or even No child left behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday April 10 2018, @08:10AM (1 child)
FTFY. Scientific papers are mainly *not* about science. That is a misunderstanding also held here on SN. First of all, they are progress report of scientists showing they are productive in some way. Only as a second purpose they are about science. We live in an industrialized scientific world. Most thinkable/obvious experiments are actually performed (often several times) due to lack of creativity of the individual scientist and the pressure to document activity. OTOH this leads to predictable progress overall which is only deniable by the truely ignorant. Admittedly, the signal-to-noise ratio is very low indeed.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @08:30AM
Sudden access of pedantry
---
I'll give you that, this does play a role. As more often than not, I was too lazy to check the original paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Monday April 09 2018, @10:56PM (3 children)
Eyebrows protect the eyes after we headbutt opponents.
Our hands are pretty fragile, and breaking fingers would mean death to early humans. Headbutting opponents and prey with our heavy strong skulls is a safer takedown approach, as well as potentially a courtship ritual (but without horns). Whoever has protective padding, against being poked or bled into the eyes, has a higher chance to survive and mate.
Prove me wrong.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:43AM
They also protect the skull and contents from fists, elbows, sticks, rocks, and other impact devices.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday April 10 2018, @07:27AM
Are you Glaswegian, by any chance?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:43PM
Our finger lengths are carefully calibrated to meet two metrics:
1) our fingers can be brought, simultaneously, to meet the thumb
2) they can form a fist with, essentially, no air pocket
That is, our hands were designed for holding things, and punching.
Also, apparently, after developing an upright gait, we developed thicker skulls. This seems to be in response to the increase in punching.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @11:04PM
free the unibrow [duckduckgo.com]!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Uncle_Al on Monday April 09 2018, @11:13PM (1 child)
https://imgflip.com/i/ywria [imgflip.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @02:03AM
Indeed.
Ninja'd by the editors!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:40AM (4 children)
The aboriginal people of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and other near-by places have the huge brow ridges.
I wonder how they do in fights. I wonder if they get useful protection from sun damage to the eyes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 10 2018, @02:39AM (3 children)
No they don't.
Or, rather those are three completely different peoples. Maori are Polynesians and don't share any particular physical features with the other two groups (apart from the obvious, you know, being people).
Australian Aboriginals might have colonised the place 50,000 years ago. They don't share much with the Papua New Guineans either.
I suspect you've never met any of those people.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @02:44AM (2 children)
I would have loved to meet one of those original Aborigines, be it only for being able to say today "Take this, aristarchus".
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:29AM (1 child)
But where would I take them? To the Billabong teeming with Bandicoots? Or to where the Green Ants Dream? Your comment puzzles me, c0lo. Waltzing Matilda, indeed!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:55AM
The correct question is: where will they take you?
And the answer is: to dream the Rainbow Serpent, younster, of course.
Then to have a Vegemite sandwich with a head full of zombie and watch Kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree (no beer for you until you grow up, chundering with a total lack of style is tasteless).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by jelizondo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:06AM
Well, not quite so. I furrow my brows to make sure anyone, at any distance, perceives that interrupting me with their stupid comments, questions or requests will likely damage their health. Permanently. 😠
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:30AM
We could have had an aristarchus submission!! (One eyebrow raised, this time in accusation!!)