Being smart can be bad for your health - NY Times

From Carl Zimmer, Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better, NY Times, May 6, 2008:

Dr. Kawecki and like-minded scientists are trying to figure out why animals learn and why some have evolved to be better at learning than others.  One reason for the difference, their research finds, is that being smart can be bad for an animal’s health.

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The benefits of learning must have been enormous for evolution to have overcome those costs, Dr. Kawecki argues. For many animals, learning mainly offers a benefit in finding food or a mate. But humans also live in complex societies where learning has benefits, as well.

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