--- title: How Our Babies Make Us Smarter description: How keeping babies alive helped humans evolve smarter, the moral implications of a civilian military and more. canonical: https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-26T16:01:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:57.516Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How Our Babies Make Us Smarter og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Our Babies Make Us Smarter twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How Our Babies Make Us Smarter by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 26, 2016 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 26, 2016 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Babies can’t do anything for themselves. Maybe keeping them alive is how humans got so smart.**](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/getting-babies-to-stop-crying-and-not-die-may-have-made-humans-smarter/) By Beth Mole in Ars Technica **2\.** [**Civilians can’t assume the moral burdens of our nation’s warfighters, but we can share their commitment.**](http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2016/the-citizen-soldier) By Phil Klay in the Brookings Essay **3\.** [**With walkable neighborhoods, we can cut obesity and diabetes.**](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/863694) By Miriam Tucker in Medscape **4\.** [**Abandon the sniff test. Here’s a better way to see if your food is spoiled.**](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601138/the-fridge-laser-that-detects-bacteria-crawling-all-over-food/) By MIT Technology Review **5\.** [**One NFL team is using robots to get the head trauma out of practice.**](http://www.gizmag.com/pittsburgh-steelers-robot/43460/) By Dave Szondy in Gizmag  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/"},"headline":"How Our Babies Make Us Smarter","datePublished":"2016-05-26T16:01:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:57.516Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/","keywords":["Innovation","Military","Food","NFL","Evolution","Obesity"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4349357/babies-humans-smarter/","name":"How Our Babies Make Us Smarter"}}]}] ```