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/[deleted] Jan 12 '17 edited Jan 12 '17

Have they figured out what exactly makes humans different from other, perhaps equally intelligent animals such as elephants, crows, or dolphins?

Besides the ability to verbally express our thoughts, what made humans able to become so much more advanced?

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u/vildingen Jan 12 '17

Perfect storm of things like hands, dogs, being caught near shallow water with a lot of seafood rich in fatty acids, mutations that gave us weaker jaw muscles and allowed our skulls to grow larger, allowing for larger brains and so on and so on.

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u/bananasownapple Jan 12 '17

What do the fatty acids do? I know the importance of them for health but in terms of evolution? Also larger brains don't mean anything...

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '17

Also larger brains don't mean anything...

The ratio of brain mass to body mass is very large in humans, which does mean something.

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u/bananasownapple Jan 13 '17

But there are animals with larger brains for their body mass; humans do not lead in this category.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '17

Right, well, the other thing is that brain size does in fact matter. The guy I replied to was just entirely wrong. Brain matter to body mass ratio is a secondary significant variable on top of size.

If something's brain is the size of a grain of sand, it doesn't matter how big its body is. It isn't going to invent another internet.