DNA clue to how humans evolved big brains by @hbriggs BBC
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The mutation was also present in our evolutionary "cousins" - the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
However, it is not found in humans' closest living relatives, the chimpanzees.
As early humans evolved, they developed larger and more complex brains, which can process and store a
lot of information.
Last year, scientists pinpointed a human gene that they think was behind the expansion of a key brain
region known as the neocortex.
They believe the gene arose about five or six million years ago, after the human line had split off from
chimpanzees.
Now, researchers have found a tiny DNA change - a point mutation - that appears to have changed the
function of the gene, sparking the
process of expansion of the neocortex.
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