Humans grow slowly but it's all for a good cause

You may not think it, but compared to our closest animal relatives humans grow incredibly slowly – more like reptiles than mammals.

There’s a good reason for it though, and it concerns your brain. The brain of a five-year-old uses twice as much glucose (the energy responsible for fuelling the brain) as that of an adult, a study led by Northwestern University anthropologists has found.

“At its peak in childhood, the brain burns through two-thirds of the calories the entire body uses at rest, much more than other primate species,” said William Leonard, co-author of the study.