Why Do Human Children Stay So Small For So Long?

This is Interesting !

Why Do Human Children Stay So Small For So Long?

December 11, 2014 | by John Skoyles
www.iflscience.com...

what is the difference between the APE and Humans in their Development to Adults
and Why Apes are Faster in the Development ..

Apparently its Because we Use MORE Energy Consumption in the brain then They do .. in Development that is

Its all about the Glucose ! Need More Energy/Glucose Firing those Networked Neurons..Quicker Faster... a Brain VS Brawn

SO IS this why the Stereotypical Small Scrawny Brainy Nerd Vs The Big Athletic Dumb Ass Comes to Place!!

So As I Read this. It Reminded me of How Some Insects are Developed in the Social Scale of Classes ( Castes )
Considering Bees Ant Termites .. Soldiers, Workers, Drones, Guards, Nanny's, Builders, Farmers, Queens Kings Etc...



Ironically with a Little Twist ... as I said Before Humans Tend to be more Like the Social Insect Then Apes.. in a Few Threads
and What I Mean By That is ... Like Ants, Bees & Termites The Larva Gets Limited or Double Food intake from its Nanny's to be either a Worker Drone Soldier or Guard to even a Queen or King.. The Most Effected is the Termite .. as in Termite Castes

The More Food or Less Food Intake of Early Stages of Development Determines what you become.. and of Course Selective Breeding among the High & Low Class Groups ...Extending or Limiting of Learning is also a Factor...

Of Course we are 98 Percent Genetically Like Apes.. but IMO We Live in a Society Like Insects to a Degree that is!

Why does it take so long for human children to grow up? A male chimp and male human, for example, both end up with the same body weight but they grow very differently: at year one the human weighs twice that of the chimp but at eight the chimp is twice that of the human. The chimp then gains its adult weight by 12 – six years before the human. A male gorilla is also a faster growing primate – a 150kg male gorilla weighs 50kg by its fifth birthday and 120kg by its tenth.

Clues to the answer can be found in the young human brain’s need for energy. Radioactive tracers allow scientists to measure the glucose used in different areas of the brain but this procedure is only used rarely when it is justified by investigating neurological problems. However, the few cases we do have reveal how radically different the childhood brain is from that in adults or infants.

From about the age of four to puberty, the young brain guzzles glucose – the cerebral cortex, its largest part, uses nearly (or more than) double that used earlier or later in life. This creates a problem. A child’s body is a third of the size of an adult but its brain is nearly adult sized. Calculated as a share, a child’s takes up half of all the energy used by a child.

www.iflscience.com...


www.youtube.com...

as One Scientist has Said Neurologist Robert Sapolsky

The the Major Difference between Ape and Humans is Human's Have 3 More Wrap a rounds of Neurons
( 3 Times More Neurons then Apes )

What Separates Us from Chimps? As It Turns Out, Not Much

www.youtube.com...

fun fact
when a child is 2 years old they are half as tall as they will be when fully grown.

of course there are exceptions with people like shaq but for the most part.

thats wild.
half your height growing in your first 2 years

as Ive Notice there is Some Difficulty of putting,, Embedding videos here on ATS

So if you cant see it just click under the video ( the Site Path )

Living in a society of people with insect like characteristics really bugs me.

originally posted by: Grovit
fun fact
when a child is 2 years old they are half as tall as they will be when fully grown.

of course there are exceptions with people like shaq but for the most part.

thats wild.
half your height growing in your first 2 years

Yeah The Ironic Twist is Apes Learn Faster and just as they are Born in little time they can cling to their Mother having more intellect while the Newborn Human is Helpless .. by the Age of 3-5 Humans Surpass The Adult age Development of Apes and Continues Rapidly

( kinda Related )
Apes -- Not Monkeys -- Ace IQ Tests
Date:
August 2, 2006
Source:
Duke University Medical Center
Summary:
The great apes are the smartest of all nonhuman primates, with orangutans and chimpanzees consistently besting monkeys and lemurs on a variety of intelligence tests, Duke University Medical Center researchers have found.

www.sciencedaily.com...

originally posted by: rickymouse
Living in a society of people with insect like characteristics really bugs me.

Social Insects
Degrees of Sociality in Insects
insects.about.com...


If you Look at this Video you can See they are Pretty much Like Us Especially Farming and Harvesting and WAR! ohh yeah and Enslaving too..

ANTS - Nature's Secret Power (Full)

www.youtube.com...

so they can fit in the oven for a longer time?

a reply to: rickymouse

You're so puny

Yep, it is to do with brain size. The size of the human brain in a new-born is 30% of what it will at two, or three.

Evolution ruled out a gestation period of (say) 24 months in order to birth a baby with a bigger brain, for various reasons. These included the physiological changes to the human shape that would have resulted in a biped with giant hips that was not optimised to survive.

The choice was to shoot out a baby with an underdeveloped brain and have a prolonged childhood with all the benefits of nurture and society, or to evolve a human body shape that would have resulted in extinction.

Regards

I believe that the reason is because if we got them as teenagers, no one would keep them...

That's why it's so important to make sure the little ones get enough sleep. They grow while they're sleeping. Of course it's evident in infants as they sleep most of the time(if only it would be at night) and you can see the differences in mere days and weeks as opposed to older children who's growth is not as rapid. treply to: Grovit

a reply to: Wolfenz

Well that's interesting and certainly a factor. Humans have evolved to be highly mobile and social, so it would on the surface make more sense for children to be ambulatory enough to keep up sooner, but with this evolutionary push-pull on energy consumption maybe it would make more sense for them to put the energy in neurodevelopment and stay small long enough to be carted around more easily for long journeys? These incidentals of social evolution as a response to environmental pressures may be another factor.

a reply to: Wolfenz

while I agree with your post OP, I would just like to add that human bodies are so incredibly weak and fragile. It's just such a garbage design if you ask me, and now that we are getting to a place of understanding human genetics, we will be able to retrofit it in a better design. I could already of the top of my head think of the following: super immune systems, taller, higher IQ, cancer/disease proof, naturally large muscles, thicker skin, natural night vision, the list goes on

a reply to: dominicus

We are not gods Domi.. thinking we are smarter than nature could prove to be the biggest mistake we've ever made.
It's not a garbage design, it is perfect for what it is intended to do, it is perfectly balanced.
I really can't understand your reasoning.. to me it sounds like your'e saying: ''Fish are stupid! why don't they have wings and laser beams?''

It's funny how human baby's are so weak and grow so slowly, it is probably because human mothers do not have enough energy to develop them further, and because a lot of ''resources'' are used to develop the brain instead of the body.

We were never this interconnected for the majority of our human evolution.
We are very territorial, even someone sitting next to someone on the bus is enough to get our heart going a little.
Insects don't think for themselves, the most they do is 'teach' other ants locations through certain smells and scents, after that pheromone is gone they will never remember that path again and get lost.
Look at how certain ants, if put into a circle will follow one another until they are dead.

Humans learn through repetition, and passing on those repetitions to their young, or to an 'outsider' and we remember.
We are far more like apes, because we are apes, an we evolved as apes. The only reason why we are like ants or colony 'thinking' insects is because we gathered to make cities, civilization and the internet. That's more of a representation of our intelligence than an instinct.

originally posted by: Skaffa
a reply to: dominicus

We are not gods Domi.. thinking we are smarter than nature could prove to be the biggest mistake we've ever made.
It's not a garbage design, it is perfect for what it is intended to do, it is perfectly balanced.


It's funny how human baby's are so weak and grow so slowly, it is probably because human mothers do not have enough energy to develop them further, and because a lot of ''resources'' are used to develop the brain instead of the body.

we are gods, for we can create and we have created cities, cars, technology, art, music, crafts, etc...so we are like mini-gods in a sense. Also, we have figured out how to work along side nature, and in many ways manipulate it as well since our understanding increases into the nature, of um, nature.

I really can't understand your reasoning.. to me it sounds like your'e saying: ''Fish are stupid! why don't they have wings and laser beams?''

Instead of fish being stupid, we catch the biggest and tastiest ones and figure how to farm raise them. Humans just naturally have the ability to manipulate their surroundings. Evolution itself keeps evolving from the weaker designs, to the better, faster, stronger, more intelligent designs.....its just part of nature. If you're saying everything is perfect as it is, you could have said that when humans were all cavemen and we could have kept it as that...but it didn't stay that way, it evolved, and will continue to do so.

We no longer live in world where we need to be hunters, fighters, cavemen, and yet it is these exact animal instincts of selfishness that creates the greed, wars, division, separation. Time to move beyond that.

If I was creating these bodies from scratch, or you were (hypothetically), I'm sure both of us would do it so much better than it is

That's the ironic thing about us, we are such a helpless creature compared to any other animal that we over compensate with our brain to be most dangerous animal on this planet. I do like the idea of the reason why we stay small and helpless for so long is due to most of the energy being used goes to the brain, since it the brain is made of some many proteins, fats, and possibly requires a lot moisture which is why we need to drink a glass of water a day.

You look at some of the creatures, and they will be fully mature within months, although some could take as long as human though, but they will most be ready to handle the challenge thrown to them. And a lot of them metabolize better, specially predators where they could starve themselves for days or even weeks.

That's the thing though about carnivores or herbivores, since believe it or not, herbivores have a physical advantage over predators as nature usually shows that they tend to be much larger, sturdier, and possibly dumber because of this. Might be cause by the fact that plant matter gives off and possibly take much more energy to burn, and maintain their bodies. While predators on the other hand are usually smaller, lighter then most prey and are probably more conservative with their energies( not in all cases tho).

I guess being one of Gods greatest or worst creations( I think Lucifer would to contend with that fact or title) requires a lot of energy to just even think.

In evolutionary terms it is the survival of the most adaptable, not the fittest. Extinction events happen when the species cannot adapt fast enough.

If your average orang-utan could be happily relocated from the rain forests to Siberian forests then there is hope, but we know they cannot. A human can thrive in both environs.

Regards

a reply to: dominicus

we are gods, for we can create and we have created cities, cars, technology, art, music, crafts, etc...so we are like mini-gods in a sense. Also, we have figured out how to work along side nature, and in many ways manipulate it as well since our understanding increases into the nature, of um, nature.

And those are all great things which we should continue with, mindfully.
But doing the things you have suggested, altering the human body, this is not creation alongside nature, this is creation against nature. Nature won't know what to do with it, it will go out of balance.

Instead of fish being stupid, we catch the biggest and tastiest ones and figure how to farm raise them. Humans just naturally have the ability to manipulate their surroundings. Evolution itself keeps evolving from the weaker designs, to the better, faster, stronger, more intelligent designs.....its just part of nature. If you're saying everything is perfect as it is, you could have said that when humans were all cavemen and we could have kept it as that...but it didn't stay that way, it evolved, and will continue to do so. We no longer live in world where we need to be hunters, fighters, cavemen, and yet it is these exact animal instincts of selfishness that creates the greed, wars, division, separation. Time to move beyond that. If I was creating these bodies from scratch, or you were (hypothetically), I'm sure both of us would do it so much better than it is

I'm not saying our or the caveman's way of life is perfect, I'm saying our evolution although slow, IS nearly perfect.
Of course we see room for improvement, and yes, if i was the creator of all humans, i would do some things differently. But.. we already have a creator, nature.. and it is so incredibly complex that we will never be able to fully understand it, our bodies just the same.

Up until now our bodies, our ecosystems have been protected from things that don't belong by our immune system, if they weren't, these things would cause drastic changes.. even the smallest most insignificant piece of dust could kill us. But our immune system does not know what to do with large scale unnatural changes, our ecosystem will be completely vulnerable to the changes we apply to it.
One change could set a chain reaction blowing everything out of proportion.
If not quickly, then slowly, if not in one lifetime, then in a few.. but it will mess us up beyond repair.

unfortunately some remain small--like me. but only small in today's standards! way back when 5'2 for a woman wasn't short at all! I would totally dig those low-slung doors like they have in older architecture. I think that part of the reason humans remain young is because they actually have the capability to enjoy being young and a child whereas in other species childhood is a time of vulnerability and sinking or swimming and therefore not pleasurable in a play with toys and chill kinda sense