Humans’ exposure to high temperature burn injuries may have played an important role in our evolutionary development, shaping how our bodies heal, fight infection, and sometimes fail under extreme injury, according to new research.
Humans burn themselves—and survive burns—with a frequency likely much greater than any other animal. Most animals avoid fire completely, while in contrast, humans live alongside fire and most humans will experience minor burns throughout their lives.
Unlike other wounds from cuts or bites which would have also led to infections, the increased lifetime risk of burns experienced by humans and their hominin ancestors is unique as they are the only species to regularly experience burn injuries and survive them.
The researchers’ findings could change how we study burn injuries, design treatments, and interpret complications of burns. It may also explain why translating results on burn injuries from animal models to humans is often ineffective.
Exposure to burn injuries played key role in shaping human evolution, study suggests
A cool (no pun) observation that I hadn’t heard of or considered before.