Genetic code gives a relationship between a triplet base sequence on RNA and an amino acid in the corresponding protein required for effective function in organisms. Accurate knowledge about the genetic code, including the origin and evolutionary process of it, would be helpful to understand the origin of life. In fact, we have previously provided several hypotheses on the origins of genes, the genetic code and proteins, which lead us to elucidation of the origin of life. In this review, I introduce a new scenario from accumulation of simple [GADV]-amino acids and formation of [GADV]-protein world to the emergence of life, or [GADV]-protein world hypothesis, which was presented by us. GADV means four amino acids, Gly[G], Ala[A], Asp[D] and Val[V], which are described by one-letter representation. In the last section of this review, I also point out several weak points of other theories on the origin of life, such as “RNA world hypothesis” and “protein-RNA world theory”.

Purpose of this study;

  We may find the relation between sensing organs and our brain through the evolution and development in human. Our five senses are considerable to integrate their sensual information in the associated area in human brain. Richard C. Cytowic have shown an actual existence for “Synesthesia” and their characteristic type. From this investigation, we get the important hint of the study of integration mechanism between the various complex senses in human brain.

Experiments using MEG and fMRI;

  In this study we have tried to measure the human senses using magnetoencephalography(MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). The first experiment is the study of the complex sensing mechanism between vision and audition. We used visual-spatial/audio-spatial task in this MEG experiment, and analyzed the effects on the selective attention for audio/visual task. From the results we found the effects of modification on neural activities in the higher visual area by the selective attention. On the other hand, the second complex sensing study between olfaction and taste was done using MEG and fMRI. From odd-ball paradigm we get source localization for the cognitive response evoked by the odorant pulse stimulation. And also from taste experiment the second neural center was found in the orbito-frontal area with the late latency about 1150ms.. The common active brain areas were found both taste stimuli and olfactory stimuli by using fMRI experiment.

Future development of this study;

  Recently, E.T. Rolls showed an integration model, such as “Gate theory for five sensing mechanism”. We will study the development of new measurements and more effective techniques of the analysis for integration of sensing mechanism in human brain.

  Recent studies have revealed that both spontaneous smiling and neonatal imitation that have been considered unique human behaviors are also seen in macaques and chimpanzees. In humans, these neonatal facial expressions could contribute to the development of mother-infant interactions. A human mother enjoys interacting with her infant and would be encouraged to pay considerably more attention on him/her. In non-human primates, such dyadic mother-infant interactions have hardly been reported. Chimpanzees, however, exhibit mutual gaze and exchange play faces (social smiling); further, such face-to-face mother-infant interactions increase from the first month of birth to the second month. Dyadic mother-infant interactions, which develop from an early age, might play a role in promoting object manipulation in human infants, because a mother shows her infant objects to attract his/her attention or have him/her hold objects to play with. Such active sharing of attention by mothers with infants precedes the emergence of behaviors of combinatorial object manipulation in infants, such as inserting an object into a bowl or stacking a block on another one; this might cultivate infants’ behaviors of presenting their mothers with objects or giving them objects. Homologous action structures comprise behaviors of combinatorial object manipulation, presenting objects, pointing toward objects, and word utterances. I argue that these structures originally generated from mother-infant interactions through the heterochronic modification of ontogeny over the course of hominization.

  The cause of visual illusion is discussed from the establishing process of visual sense including the evolutional viewpoint．The visual illusion in which the moon in the horizon was greatly seen was verified from the experiment using the ball．The visual sense is not the image which projected the image of optic organ in the brain directly．The visual sense is the world of the subjective image formed in the brain．This image should be limitedly correspondent to the object world．Dealing with mechanism is mainly based on the practice of the subject to the object．It is considered that there is the visual illusion in the blank where the practice does not reach, or it is a blind spot in the part which is insufficient for the integration in the brain．

  This paper examines the complication process of verbs compared with materials in natural languages. And the process from vague cognition to logical definite one is discussed as well. First, emergence order of intransitive and transitive is deduced. Ergative phenomenon is to be noted so as to refer to the branching off of transitive verb from intransitive. New quality, transitive, came to existence; “the emergence of transitive” must have had reflex relation with “objectification of the circumstance and self-objectification.” Secondly, relation between perfect aspect and past tense is also discussed. Perfect aspect implies abstractness in itself, however, it seems to have been in use from early stage. Later, grammatical structure around “time” was built up chiefly based on “tense” system. Present and past tense had not emerged before people gained abstract and relational cognition. It is present tense that gives abstract and trans-temporal meaning to sentences.

  In sharp contrast to the highly modular theory of grammar advanced by Generative Grammar in the past, current Minimalist Program seeks to minimize the genetic component of the human language faculty, known as Universal Grammar. This radical shift of research strategy has the effect of placing the topic of the origins and evolution of language in the proper domain of evolutionary biology, by reducing the domain-specific, and therefore evolutionarily inexplicable part of the language faculty to the bare minimum. Through a detailed review of the development of phrase structure theory, this paper illustrates the tight connection between grammatical theorizing and evolutionary studies. The emerging picture is that language evolution is a good example of what Charles Darwin once called “descent with modification.”