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Did 'burrowing' placenta give us big brains?

By Andy Coghlan

2 July 2008

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

ONE of the biggest puzzles of evolution is how our brains got to be big compared with those of other animals. It now seems possible that a hormone which allows the placenta to burrow into the wall of the uterus in some primates might also have played a key role in brain evolution.

“A hormone which allows the placenta to burrow into the uterus wall might have played a key role in brain evolution”

Our brains account for a whopping 2.4 per cent of our body weight, three times the corresponding percentage in one of our nearest relatives, the orang-utan,…

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