I'm probably the only one who calls themselves an evolution physiologist. I study what others are not studying. It's where others run into difficulties that the most information is. I have more of a background than PhDs, studying everything relevant at three universities including the agriculture which is essential for evaluation of evolution; and researching extreme evolution in an unusual yeast and mushroom involves evolution physiology.

Evolution scientists miss way too much having nothing but fossil evidence to go by. If you search for evolution of dinosaurs on Wikipedia, the assumption is that dinosaurs got large for endogenous reasons such as conserving heat or improving digestion. Those assumption defy the first rule of evolution, which is that environments shape evolution.

The subject of dinosaurs often shows a famous painting of a dinosaur standing in a grassy area and looking up at trees. There was no grass nor trees when and where such dinosaurs existed. There was nothing but nonwoody brush, which dinosaurs ate, for thousands of miles. It took a lot of power to tromp through the brush. The brush would have been about three feet high and included tough vines. Modern weeds represent those plants, which includes field dodder, a viny weed that tangles through everything around it.

The nonwoody brush held up all evolution including dinosaurs which persisted in spite of being absurdly unfit for anything but tromping through brush, though some became carnivores. Around the periphery, hills were forming with conifers evolving on them. In between, a few critical variants were evolving including flowering plants, grass and mammals. The mammals had to stay small to go under the brush instead of over it.

When the asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs, everything was in place for a rapid transition to modern biology. Grass shaped the result. It shoved out the brush due to its surface mat and allowed modern species to grow over and around it.

Human evolution shows the limitations of fossil evidence and the need for physiological evidence. The assumption of evolution biologists is that humans evolved, as primates migrated out of the jungles and into the grassy savannas of Africa. That's not what happened.

It was zinc that allowed humans to evolve. The monkeys were getting very little zinc, because plants do not use zinc and there is very little zinc in soil for plants to pick up. Zinc is needed to strengthen the immune system; and it strengthens bones.

The monkeys were using super oxide to fight disease. Super oxide is dioxygen with an extra electron. It is used to break down foreign matter in the blood. Enzymes cannot be used, because about a billion different types would be needed. The extra electron of super oxide reacts with foreign matter in the blood, which includes bacteria and viruses in addition to signal molecules which need to be gotten rid of, such as hormones, cytokines and interferons.

Super oxide is quite problematic. It takes energy to be synthesized, can only be used once and must be surrounded by a lipid membrane to prevent it from reacting with everything around it. So it gets used up just when it is needed the most during a disease.

Zinc is a metal catalyst that oxidizes foreign matter in the blood with the assistance of white blood cells. Zinc is the strongest oxidizing agent that can be routinely handled in physiology. It does not need to be attached to enzymes to be used to break down foreign matter. As a catalyst, it can be reused over and over.

The monkeys could not live more than about eight years because of the limitations of super oxide in fighting disease. But some of them became light carnivores and picked up more zinc in their diet becoming the great apes. Metals accumulate in animals, much like the mercury that accumulates in tuna. So the great apes got more zinc in their diet than monkeys did and could live to about 40 years. They could also get larger due to zinc strengthening their bones.

So the great apes wondered around more and found the western coast of Africa to have available protein from sea creatures and shore birds and their eggs. Those coastal creatures were loaded with zinc. The extra zinc allowed the great apes to evolve into humans. It lengthened their life-span to 80 years or more and strengthened their bones. With age, knowledge and communication became relevant causing their brains to expand.

The brains of humans acquired a need for a different essential fatty acid. The lipid membranes of humans have an essential fatty acid, similar to a vitamin, called alpha linolenic acid. Green plants provide the needed alpha linolenic acid. But as the great apes moved to Southwestern Africa, the jungle was hundreds of miles away. So they acquired the essential fatty acid of sea creatures, which is an omega three fatty acid slightly different than alpha linolenic acid.

Now the brains of humans use the omega three fatty acid of sea creatures, while the rest of their cells use the alpha linolenic acid of jungle leaves. The different types can be interconverted; but the existence of the sea-creature type of fatty acids in human brains shows that humans evolved their brains along the sea coast, not in the grassy savannas as assumed by evolution biologists. And it was the increase in zinc along the sea coast that allowed human longevity and increase in brain size to evolve.