Recent Brain Evolution

Science published two papers today that deal with two different genes (ASPM and Microcephalin) involved in brain development. Both genes have variants that show evidence of positive selection in the recent past--one as recent as about 6,000 years ago. Not all people have these variants though. For more information see commentary by John Hawks and Dienekes. Both are worth reading.

The bottom line is that it appears that the human brain is still evolving (which shouldn't be all that shocking, but we do tend to think of ourselves as a "finished" product). However nobody yet knows what effect that these gene variants have on the brain (if any).