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.
Social media, pornography or work: What’s to blame for our decrease in sex?
We live in one of the most sexually liberated times of human history. Access to new technologies over the past ...
How humans and chimps diverged: DNA parasite ‘jumping genes’ played key role
Face-to-face, a human and a chimpanzee are easy to tell apart. The two species share a common primate ancestor, but ...
Does ‘G’ mark the spot? Science struggles to explain the female orgasm
Why are orgasms so intensely pleasurable? How come women can experience multiple orgasms? And does the fabled G-spot even exist? ...
Colon cancer rates spiking among millennials, but no one knows why
It might be tempting for activists to blame GMOs for the rise in colon cancer rates among younger people, but ...
Homo Sapiens 2.0: National Geographic TV series explores what life on earth will look like in 1 million years
In the year 1 million, Earth's continents will look roughly the same as they do now and the sun will ...
Humans move around and fool around: There’s no such thing as a ‘pure’ country or civilization
When the first busloads of migrants from Syria and Iraq rolled into Germany 2 years ago, some small towns were ...
Genetic factors might explain nuances of male gay behavior, study claims
A lot of people think that homosexuality is a simple matter of genetics—if you have the so-called "gay gene," well, ...
Cesarean section: How this booming birth procedure influences human evolution
The rising use of C-sections around the world is altering the survival rates of mothers and fetuses who might not ...
Infection-causing, antibiotic-resistant ‘superbug’ originated 500 million years ago
The bacteria, called Enterococcus, is a so-called superbug, meaning it is resistant to antibiotics and cleaning products. In the new ...
Legislation urging educators to ‘teach the controversy’ on evolution spreading
State and local legislatures in the United States are experimenting with new ways to target the topics taught in science ...
Queer theory and biology: Should ‘relatedness’ be defined only by blood and genes?
Biological taxonomy, the study and sorting of how different organisms are related to one another, has for centuries incorporated novelty ...
What a DNA test could tell you about likelihood of your children getting genetic diseases
My dad died of cancer when I was 11 years old. I have my father’s hooded eyelids, quick temper, and ...
Sniffing out the truth: Humans do have a good sense of smell
[It's] conventional wisdom that humans’ sense of smell is worse than that of other animals — dogs, mice, moles and ...
Walked with us: Cave findings show extinct human-like species Homo naledi co-existed with modern humans
Discovered in a South African cave, H. naledi first came to light in 2015, in a paper by University of the Witwatersrand ...
‘Baby dragon’: Giant bird-like dinosaur preserved in egg resembled an overgrown ostrich
More than 20 years after gracing the cover of National Geographic as “Baby Louie,” a tiny dinosaur found curled inside ...
‘Resurrected gene’ offers glimpse into Earth’s evolutionary past
A resurrected gene, brought back from the dead in the lab, is allowing molecular biologists to travel billions of years ...
Which is the ‘weaker sex’? New review of genes illustrates male-female survival differences
[Prof. Shmuel Pietrokovski and Dr. Moran Gershoni of the Weizmann Institute’s molecular genetics department]...identified around 6,500 genes with activity that ...
Epigenetics Around the Web: Marie Claire’s missteps on probiotics and microbiome; Dad’s role in fetal health
Missteps on science, journalism and advertising; Overhyping the epigenetic relationship between healthy fathers and healthy children ...
Superbug antibiotic backlash? Let’s review the science
Don’t call it a war on superbugs. That’s the latest advice from international public health experts who have been watching ...
Ice age mammal bones discovered during subway construction in Los Angeles
The discovery of ice age mammal bones — one belonging to an extinct camel and the other to either a ...
World’s first sex robot: She also smiles, tells jokes and quotes Shakespeare
In the brightly lit robotics workshop at Abyss Creations’ factory in San Marcos, California, a life-size humanoid was dangling from a ...
Which genetic test is best: AncestryDNA v 23andMe v National Geographic
Genetic testing companies have proprietary sets of data and various ways of analyzing information, so each one I tried offered ...
Neanderthals may have lived in California — 130,000 years ago
A startling new report asserts that the first known Americans arrived much, much earlier than scientists thought — more than ...
Natural chefs? Chimps learn to use an oven, sparking debate on how humans learned to cook
If you give a chimp an oven, he or she will learn to cook. That's what scientists concluded from a ...
10 traits we share with ancient Neanderthals
While Neanderthals are long-extinct (and possibly a subspecies of modern humans), archaeology is proving that they had a lot in ...
Epigenetics Around the Web: IFL Science doesn’t f****** understand how humans ‘inherit’ modifications
The popular science site IFL Science whiffs at covering a major study; and can we please stop talking about 'space ...
Disease trade-off: Malaria resistance comes with higher risk for multiple sclerosis, lupus
When it comes to human evolution and survival, fighting off one disease can sometimes mean that a person becomes more ...
