• Question: Are humans still evolving?

    Asked by matthewb to Alex, Jools, Lynz, Matt, Rika on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Chandrika Nair

      Chandrika Nair answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      yes humans are still evolving, for example over time our jaws are becoming smaller because we don’t need such large teeth as when our diets mostly consisted of tough plant material. because our jaws are getting smaller, we have to deal with the issue of wisdom teeth not fitting anymore.

    • Photo: Lyndsey Fox

      Lyndsey Fox answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Another area of recent evolution is how our metabolism has changed to allow us to digest some things that we could not in the past. The most obvious example of this is lactose, the sugar in milk. Some 10,000 years ago, before humans started farming, no one could digest this beyond a few years of age.

      But today, the rate of lactose tolerance in different parts of the world is a clue to the different histories of farming across the globe. While 99% of Irish people are lactose tolerant, in South East Asia, where there is very little tradition of dairy farming, the figure is less than 5%.

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