5 June 2009

The origin of laughter

Ed Yong has the story:
It didn't arise out of nowhere, but gradually developed over 10-16 million years of evolution by exaggerating the acoustics of our ancestors. At the very least, we should now be happy to describe the noises made by tickled apes as laughter without accusations of anthropomorphism, and to consider "laughter" as a trait that applies to primates and other animals.

See also BBC report

No comments: