For my new  “Matter” column for the New York Times, I take a look at a new idea to explain that mystery between our ears. Our brains are enormous for our body size, and our minds are capable of extraordinary feats of cognition. Two neuroscientists have offered up a hypothesis that links these two facts, suggesting how an increase in brain size could have led to a change in how the brain is networked. Check it out.

You may also want to check out P.Z. Myers’s critique of the “tether hypothesis” on his blog Pharyngula. He raises some important questions about the idea, based on his own experiences as a neuroscientist. I’m puzzled, though, why he decided to kick it