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.
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Will ‘The Dawn of Everything’ rewrite human history, as the book’s authors (modestly) claim?
“The Dawn of Everything” — which weighs in at a whopping 704 pages, including a 63-page bibliography — aims to ...
Could CRISPR gene editing be a solution to antibiotic-resistant superbugs?
The fast rise in antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most concerning health issues. Antibiotic-resistant infections kill about 700,000 ...
Omicron: What we know so far — and what lies ahead
Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This ...
Evolutionary thinking: What would a world without humans look like?
Humanity's fingerprint can be seen across the planet today, from the towering skyscrapers that define our modern metropolises to the ...
Why did Neanderthals lose their battle for survival to modern humans? Here’s a new theory
Our hypotheses surrounding the Neanderthals’ fate have... changed over time. The longest-standing theory is that we outcompeted them: We were ...
Hundreds of dog breeds have disappeared over the centuries. Could — and should — we bring them back?
The World Canine Organization officially recognises around 370 different breeds, including the fashion-victim Chinese Crested, with its nude, greyish body ...
98.6°F: American body temperatures have been dropping for 200 years. Why?
Early last year, researchers in the United States combed Civil War veteran records and national health surveys and found temperatures ...
Is there an evolutionary explanation for recent surge in child-free pet parenting?
I’m an anthropologist who studies human-animal interactions, a field known as anthrozoology. I want to better understand the behavior of ...
Mystery envelops Homo naledi child skull fragments found in South African cave
Named “Leti,” this is the first known skull belonging to a Homo naledi child—a fossil that’s shedding new light onto ...
Maybe the universe had no beginning
In the beginning, there was … well, maybe there was no beginning. Perhaps our universe has always existed — and ...
Discovery of new species Homo bodoensis may clean up — or muddle — the human family tree
A new ancestor of Homo sapiens has been named by scientists as part of an effort to clean up our ancestry. Homo ...
5 global guidelines for DNA research on human remains: Proposal issued by 60 scientists in 30 countries
Institutional or governmental guidelines for obtaining permission to analyse ancient individuals vary and do not always ensure ethical and engaged ...
Skepticism grows over dinosaur DNA discovery claims
A team has extracted what could be DNA molecules from a 125-million-year-old fossil dinosaur, according to a study published [September ...
Natural GMOs: Is it dangerous, as critics claim, to ‘transfer’ genes from other species? Nature doesn’t think so
Grass crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their neighbours, giving them a competitive ...
Homo bodoensis: New ancient human species might have been identified — but not all experts agree
A new species of extinct human has been named: Homo bodoensis. The species hasn’t been identified based on new fossils, ...
DNA confirms legendary Lakota leader Sitting Bull has a living descendant
A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted ...
From mixing urine in wine to peeing on barley: A history of pregnancy tests
Trying to figure out if you’re pregnant is probably as old as humanity itself. People had some pretty weird methods, ...
How should scientists handle DNA extracted from ancient sites? Researchers have now crafted guidelines
As ancient DNA research sweeps the globe, ballooning from zero genomes sequenced as of 2009 to more than 6,000 as ...
What did ancient humans eat?
Unearthed from the graves of children, ceramic baby bottles from thousands of years ago would look perfectly at home in ...
Excavations in Israel have sparked renewed debate over why Homo erectus migrated out of Africa
What exactly pushed—or pulled—H. erectus out of Africa is a matter of fierce debate. Was it some innate adaptability, such ...
A glow-in-the-dark animal? Meet the springhare
Fluorescence occurs across only a handful of mammals but they span three different continents and inhabit entirely different ecosystems. The ...
Footprints in the sand: Six-million-year old pre-human prints discovered in Crete are oldest ever found
The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million ...
‘The future is in the past’: How genetic studies are illuminating early journeys of indigenous Hawaiians
Through analyzing genomes from present-day peoples, we can do incredible things like determine the approximate number of wa‘a (voyaging canoes) ...
More than domestication: Simply sharing environments with humans has radically altered the behavior of many animal species
Humans have a long history of domesticating animals, a process that has spanned thousands of years. Charles Darwin was the ...
If humans colonize Mars, we’d be subjected to high radiation, low gravity, and a whole new environment — speeding up natural selection and evolution
As it turns out, human colonization of the harsh and exotic atmosphere on Mars (if we can achieve it) might ...
Are women biologically programmed to be more sensitive to cold than men?
Israeli scientists think they know why men and women are constantly squabbling over the heating control or the air conditioning ...
Ancient DNA confirms our African roots — and reveals how Neanderthals, Denisovans and humans ‘continually mixed’
This year is the 20th anniversary of sequencing the human genome. In honor of this event, a research team led by ...
