Food for the brain

Brains Big Bang?

Our big and complex brains are the most striking feature of our species. Fossil skulls are the telltale of its expansion in time.
Doing some work yourself is interesting:

1. Look for facts and figures on the different volumes of brain pans in the course of time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_(genus)

2. Construct a graph of the relation between volume and time (on a timescale of 3 mln years)

3. Does it reveal a gradual expansion or are there at any given periods with "jumps" visible?

4. Lookup "punctuated equilibrium" in theories of evolution and give a short description of this idea and its proponents.

5. Try to find figures about the growth rate of human brains in their first two years (0-2) of age.
   
   http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium).
   
   
   J.P. MOULINET Poissonnerie Dégustation -
   2 rue Ernest Renan - 22220 TRÉGUIER - Bretagne

6. An argument in favour of the more aquatic past of mankind is research into the food components we need to assure the extremely rapid growth of our brains in the first years after birth.
   A scientific publication on this is the article by Cunnane: Cunnane fattest.pdf
   
   Reproduce his conclusions.
   
   An alternative is found at the Franklin Institute http://www.fi.edu/brain/fats.htm

7. Underpinning this is an essay called "Early humans swapped bite for a brain" .

8. Which types of molecules are involved? Reproduce the general molecular structure.

9. Find out what kinds of food are especially rich in these substances.

10. Put together coherent the facts and figures you obtained in 1. to 9