Ancestry & Evolution
The desire to understand our origins is primal. By examining our DNA over successive generations through the evolutionary process of inherited characteristics of human and animal populations–as well as from those species from which humans share a common ancestry–we can decipher our individual and collective past and develop medical innovations for the future.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Who surivived in England after the last ice age? DNA analysis reveals two distinct groups
Scientists have sequenced the oldest human DNA discovered in Britain and discovered two unique population groups that lived in Britain ...
Adapting plants to our needs: From rudimentary hand pollination by ancient farmers to CRISPR, humans have always been genetically modifying crops
People have been taking plants from the wild and growing/cultivating them to both meet their needs and their pleasures for ...
Is human intelligence an evolutionary dead end?
The German Philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was, by all accounts, a miserable human being. He famously sought meaning through suffering, ...
Podcast: Evolution of hair texture — Did curls help early humans survive?
In the latest episode of the Tracking Traits podcast, postdoctoral researcher Tina Lasisi relayed her aims as a scientist working ...
Ancient homo sapiens diets included grains, veggies… and other people? Cannibalism was the norm in early human societies
Our Paleolithic ancestors ate each other. We (Homo sapiens) did it. Neanderthals did it. Homo erectus and Homo antecessor did ...
Treatment-resistant triple-negative breast cancer disproportionately affects Black women. African genetic ancestry may explain why
Researchers in the US have found a genetic link between people with African ancestry and an aggressive type of breast ...
‘Children of Omicron’: What public health threats lie ahead as COVID evolves?
Throughout the pandemic, the virus that causes COVID-19 has been evolving fast, blindsiding the world with one variant after another ...
Viewpoint: Challenging perceptions — The 21st century so far is the most peaceful time in human history
It is a common perception that we are living in the most unstable and disturbing circumstances amidst inequality, class differences, ...
Biological tipping point: At a certain point in life, environmental factors and age are more important to disease risk than DNA
In 1952, Nobel-prize winner Dr. Peter Medawar put forward the hypothesis that aging processes may be a result of evolution’s ...
The increasingly bushy human family tree and five other paradigm-altering changes in our understanding of human evolution
From archaeological reconstructions of Neanderthals as stooped, hairy and brutish, to “cavemen” movies, our ancient ancestors got a bad press ...
Autoimmune disorders: Here’s how the Black Death altered evolution and left permanent scars on survivors’ descendants
When the Black Death swept through northern Africa and Eurasia in the mid-fourteenth century, it killed up to half of ...
‘So much more than cave-dwelling thugs with clubs’: Neanderthal DNA gives us a look into ancient family life
One of the things that makes us special as a species is our ability to form communities, but we humans ...
Allergy epidemic: Up to 10% of children have food intolerances. Where did they come from?
Food allergies are becoming increasingly common, in children and in adults. Yet it’s surprisingly difficult to get a handle on ...
Here is when and how humans attained ‘behavioral modernity’
For 200,000-300,000 years after Homo sapiens first appeared, tools and artefacts remained surprisingly simple, little better than Neanderthal technology, and simpler than ...
New method that could help spot alien life: Tracking oxygen levels across the universe
Are we alone in the universe? This is a question that has intrigued humans for centuries and inspired countless studies ...
‘Apex predators’: For 2.5 million years, early humans stood atop the food chain, eating mostly meat
Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green, according to a study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors. For ...
Ancestry vulnerability: Inherited metabolic differences key to understanding disease patterns
Our ancestry can be detected not only in our genes, but also in our metabolism, a new Yale-led study has ...
Ancient exchange of ideas: Modern humans and Neanderthals shared designs for jewelry and stone tools
Modern humans lived alongside Neanderthals for more than 1,000 years in Europe, according to research that suggests the two species may have ...
Why did humans evolve bigger brains than our hominid cousins?
Changes in the size and organization of the brain distinguish the emergence of modern humans, but we know little about ...
Diversity, inclusion and the Human Pangenome Project: Why capturing human genome diversity in our 4-letter language is such a big deal
“Pan” has several meanings. As a noun, it refers to “a round metal container that often has a long handle ...
Why are some children way taller or shorter than their parents? This study of over 5 million people reveals relationship between height and genes
A new study, published October 12 in Nature, is the largest ever genome-wide association study, using the DNA of over ...
First life forms on Mars could have created a ‘reverse greenhouse effect’ — making the planet inhospitable and leading to their extinction
Ancient microbial life on Mars could have destroyed the planet’s atmosphere through climate change, which ultimately led to its extinction, ...
Here’s why humans grow two sets of teeth
You only get 52 teeth in your lifetime: 20 baby teeth, followed by 32 adult teeth. It’s not like that ...
Just add air and water: The simplest recipe for life on Earth
The origins of how life on Earth arose remains a deep existential and scientific mystery. It’s long been theorized that ...
A common flu strain all but vanished last winter. Could COVID have pushed it to extinction?
Many subtypes of the influenza virus all but vanished. But most notably, one entire lineage—one of only four flu groups ...
‘Domino extinction effect’: Here’s what might happen to humans if key animal species start dying from climate change
Everything has a purpose here on Earth, and everything in each ecosystem is intertwined. Population changes to one animal or ...
Latest investor in wooly mammoth de-extinction gene editing technology? The CIA, and why that matters
As a rapidly advancing climate emergency turns the planet ever hotter, the Dallas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has a vision: ...
