‪#‎Smiles‬ Are Older Than You Think ‪#‎Happyho‬

Another new study has revealed that the origin of smiles goes back at least 30 million years, when old world monkeys and our direct ancestors diverged. The study found that when human and chimp infants are dozing, they sometimes show facial movements that resemble smiles. These facial expressions – called spontaneous smiles – are considered the evolutionary origin of real smiles and laughter. They showed that this not only happens to higher-order primates like humans and chimpanzees, but also in newborn Japanese macaques, which are more distant relatives in the evolutionary tree. “About a decade ago we found that chimp infants also display spontaneous smiles,” said Masaki Tomonaga from Kyoto University in Japan. “Since we see the same behaviour in more distant relatives, we can infer that the origin of smiles goes back at least 30 million years, when old world monkeys and our direct ancestors diverged.”