Human Evolution
Carbohydrates are an energy rich food source. Amylase is thought to have played a key role in human evolution in allowing humans an alternative to fruit and protein. A duplication of the pancreatic amylase gene developed independently in humans and rodents, further suggesting its importance. The salivary amylase levels found in the human lineage are six to eight times higher in humans than in chimpanzees, which are mostly fruit eaters and ingest little starch relative to humans.
Read more about this topic: Amylase
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or evolution:
“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)