If you have spent time with an infant, you might recognize the scene: A child is wailing, inconsolable, and you, the parent, have to go to the bathroom. Or eat. Or attend to a pot that's boiling over. But someone needs to watch the baby. Such urgent situations often call for innovation. In modern times, we might negotiate schedules with our partners, seek out affordable child care, or purchase "baby-tainment" contraptions via our phones.
Language likely evolved as a crucial tool to facilitate the care of vulnerable infants, requiring cooperative parenting and communication among groups in early human societies.
When Alien: Earth hits FX on August 12, prepare to ask yourself all kinds of wonderful questions, such as: Are our human bodies not a kind of outdated machine? Are the aliens not just a biological inevitability that we don't yet understand?
The modern form of the gene ADSL in humans reduces enzyme stability compared to that found in Neanderthals or Denisovans, suggesting significant biochemical differences between species.