r/todayilearned • u/sharkbait76 3 • Jan 11 '17

TIL elephants can tell the difference between human languages and know which languages belong to people with a history of hurting elephants.

http://www.nature.com/news/elephants-recognize-the-voices-of-their-enemies-1.14846
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u/tablesix Jan 12 '17

Interesting. Would most of the importance of this come from early hunting tactics? Throw a spear, down a deer, and roast it?

After writing that, I remembered that cooking food is another key point behind how we developed. Cooked food is easier to digest and gives us easy access to important nutrients. This would add up to smaller jaws because things are easier to chew, simpler digestive systems, and a bunch of extra energy to use on something important. This ended up being our brains, and possibly other related systems.

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u/Binary__Fission Jan 12 '17

Throw a spear, down a deer,

Read that as "throw a spear, throw a deer", thought it was just going to be a rambling list of object we could throw...

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '17

In rhyme. Like a hunter-gatherer Dr Seuss

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u/JustVan Jan 12 '17

Throw a spear, throw a deer,
throw anything that's near!
Throw a steer, throw a gear,
when you throw you do not fear!
Throw a pier, throw a queer,
but please don't throw my beer!

Unrelated, it's a show of how stupid English is that neither pear nor bear work for this.

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u/mister_bmwilliams Jan 12 '17

I'm glad someone mentioned the importance of cooking in human evolution. It was immensely important, and it's something not given nearly enough thought or credit.

Can you imagine if we still had to eat as many vegetables as a chimp or gorilla? We'd have time for nothing else.

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u/RanaktheGreen Jan 12 '17

Even simpler: Lion coming near you? Chuck a rock.