Billions and billions
For some animals like us, yes. The price is that a brain is a major energy sink, so we have to eat more for our body weight to keep it working, and our young take longer to develop so we have to protect them longer. (At least until Grad school.)
It’s more like a shrubery.
They did. They died and didn’t breed. Lesson learned. 
Or possibly some combination thereof. There’s even a theory about new plant life that caused fatal diarrhea in herbivorous dinosaurs, and then the rest just died out from the loss of prey.
You don’t already?
Pretty much. Smarter critters find food better, avoid predators better, and generally survive longer — long enough to breed and pass on the genes for larger brains.
I bet Badger has something to say about that.
i bet agent smith was ‘cosmos’ fan…parasites, indeed.
You know me too well.
That would be a hilarious mash-up.
“This oak tree and me”
Sounds like a poem
My brain hurts a little, but this is fascinating. It’s amazing that we are chemically the same as plants.
Wow! We took a journey from outer space to inner space in the course of two hours. Amazing.
nooooo…internet slowdown…
I do? Like what?
A funny statment at the moment, but I always thought of Carl as the Shakespeare of scientific literature, his descriptions have always had a poetic fee to them.
While cutting DNA…waiting for the Borg nanoprobes to enter and attack
Resistance is futile
We protect our young too long. They’ll never be able to fend off a zombie/robot apocalypse. Somethin’ like that.
Carl Sagan…bloodsucker
Carl Sagan…wizard
He said Stupify!
That’s reallly beautiful, the blood flow with the music. Such an odd combination, but it works so well…