水果促进大脑的进化:发育得更大

Humans likely developed large and powerful brains, researchers said Monday, with the help of what is today the simplest of snacks: fruit. Eating fruit was a key step up from the most basic of foodstuffs, such as leaves, and provided the energy needed to grow bulkier brains, the scientists argued.

研究人员于周一表示：有了当今时代最简单零食--水果的帮助，人类有可能发育出更大、更强的大脑。科学家说，吃水果是从吃最基本的食物（如叶子）中迈出的重要一步，并且还提供了发育大脑所需的能量。

"That's how we got these crazy huge brains," said the study's corresponding author Alex Decasien, a researcher at New York University. "We have blown up the quality of our food that we are eating." The study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution looked at the staple foods of over 140 species of primates, and assumed their diets haven't changed much over the course of recent evolution.

"因此我们的大脑才如此疯狂的巨大，"纽约大学的研究员兼本研究的通讯作者Alex Decasien说道。"我们已经放大了所吃食物的质量。"该研究刊登在《自然生态与进化》期刊上，研究了140多种灵长类动物的主食，并假设在近期的进化过程中，它们的饮食变化不大。

According to the research, the animals which feast on fruit have brains that are about 25 percent bigger than those filling their bellies primarily with leaves. The results call into question the theory that has prevailed since the mid-1990s, which says bigger brains developed out of the need to survive and reproduce in complex social groups.

研究表明：吃水果的动物的大脑要比主要以吃叶子为生的动物大25%左右。20世纪90年代中期开始盛行这样一种理论：在复杂的社会群体中，出于生存和繁殖的需要，更大的大脑才得以形成，该研究结果则质疑了这一理论。

Decasien said the challenges of living in a group could be part of getting smarter, but found no link between the complexity of primates' social lives and the size of their grey matter. What did correlate strongly with brain size was eating fruit. Foods such as fruit contain more energy than basic sources like leaves, thus creating the additional fuel needed to evolve a bigger brain.

Decasien说群体生活的挑战可能会使灵长动物更聪明，但却与它们社会生活的复杂性以及大脑灰质大小毫无关系。与大脑大小相关的是吃水果。水果等食物含有的能量多于树叶等基本食物，因此能额外促进大脑进化得更大。

At the same time, remembering which plants produce fruit, where they are, and how to break them open could also help a primate grow a bigger brain. A larger brain also needs more fuel to keep it running. "We've heard that fact saying is two percent of our body weight, but it takes up 25 percent of our energy," Decasien said.

同时，记住哪种植物长水果、位置在哪、如何打开这些水果也可能帮助灵长动物发育更大的大脑。更大的大脑也需要更多的燃料才能运转。"我们已听说过这样的事实：大脑的重量只有我们体重的2%，但其需要的能量却达25%，"Decasien说道。

"It's a crazy expensive organ." While the study challenges some of the orthodoxy of how our brains evolved, the research is likely to continue. "I feel confident that their study will refocus and reinvigorate research seeking to explain cognitive complexity in primates and other mammals," wrote Chris Venditti, a researcher at the University of Reading in Britain in a comment on the study, also published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. "But many questions remain," he added.

"这是个疯狂的、高价的器官。"虽然研究质疑了一些正统观念，比如我们的大脑是如何进化的，但很有可能会继续开展下去。"我相信他们的研究将重新聚焦、重振那些试图解释灵长类动物和其它哺乳动物认知复杂性的研究，"英国雷丁大学的研究员克里斯·文迪蒂在评论该研究时写道，该评论也发表在《自然生态和进化》期刊上。"但还有很多问题有待研究，"他补充说。