Mammals' Big Brains Started with Better Sense of Smell

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By Valerie Ross
May 20, 2011 11:18 PMNov 20, 2019 5:07 AM

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Mammals' increased brain size may have come from long-ago natural selection for a better sense of smell, suggests a new study published today in Science. By reconstructing in 3D the skulls of two animals far back on the mammal family tree, the researchers saw that growth of smell-related brain regions accounted for much of the early increase in brain size as mammals developed. How the Heck:

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