Hot Stuff

I knew (not too well) Richard Wrangham when I was at the University of Michigan. He had a lot of great stories about studying baboons and chimps and so on. (Great ape stories.)

Now I see he has a book out, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Looks interesting. When our ancestors started eating meat, that was a big change. Now Wrangham claims learning how to cook was a big deal, too. When we don't have chew so hard, we can use our head for other things, like thinking.

What surprises me most is that cooking is so ancient--it started 1.8 million years ago, according to Wrangham. Even if it's half that, it still surprises me.