New research finds that grandmothers may be one reason for the dominance of homo sapiens. Humans have alleles (alternative versions of a gene) that protect against late-onset Alzheimer’s Disease and otherwise safeguard the functioning of  grandmothers and “other human elders who are involved in caregiving of the young.” 

This study helps explain why women live on past menopause and bolsters the “grandmother hypothesis,” which posits that it’s in grandmothers’ evolutionary interest to ensure that grandchildren survive to reproductive age.  

Scientists who study the evolutionary effect of various genetic mutations have noticed that these mutations were not present in Neanderthals and other early human lineages. 

All of which says, to me at least, that grandparents rock!

(My parents, who lived to see almost all their grandchildren graduate from high school.)