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Galena close up. View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this section on the evolution of the human face, driven by the type of musculature and the social pressures for communication. The superficial beauty of the human mask captivates us all, but the effects are just skin deep. Below is a structure welded by forces over long periods of time, designed for a social function. We are easily misled, as was the intention, if ever there was one. View in LinkedIn

SOCIAL FACIAL MASK. “Overall, these qualitative case studies add to the growing body of evidence that primate mimetic musculature form and evolution are adaptive to social, communicative pressures. We know that mimetic musculature in extant species is adaptive to social variables (such as group size and dominance ‘style’), but future studies may be able to extrapolate our current knowledge to taxa represented only in the fossil record.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

FAST-TWITCH TOPHEAVY. “In other words, our minority of slow-twitch fibers was far greater than the minority of slow-twitch fibers in chimpanzees and macaques. The distribution of slow-twitch fibers in human is roughly 15–20%, whereas in chimpanzees and macaques it is only 2–7%.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn