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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Were Neanderthals violent and territorial? That’s the stereotype but that better describes Homo sapiens
Throughout the 19th century, when the theory of evolution was struggling to land in the public imagination, discussions about Neanderthals were ...
What separates human thinking from that of other animals and when did our uniqueness emerge?
The human mind is unlike any other. It’s the key that unlocked language, culture, abstract reasoning, long-term planning, and large-scale ...
Calorie dense beverages are exceeding what our bodies have evolved to handle
Humans started drinking the equivalent of very, very light beer 13,000 years ago. And we may have consumed milk from livestock as ...
Voice cracks and menstruation periods: What was maturation like for ancient teenagers
Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In ...
Book excerpt: What’s the evolutionary role of the placenta, the only organ that humans shed completely
"Human evolution has occurred both due to, and in spite of, the placenta. Every pregnancy, unthinkingly, must navigate a careful ...
Can the delayed evolution of humans on Earth help explain why we have not been visited by aliens?
[T]he Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological ...
Sickle cell victim summits Killimanjaro after breakthrough gene therapy treatment
Jimi Olaghere was born with sickle cell anemia. He endured years of painful crises, fatigue, and breathing problems. This month, ...
3.2-million-year-old Lucy may provide a lesson in the link between nudity and shame
Fifty years ago, scientists discovered a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of pieces of bone of a 3.2-million-year-old female ...
‘It can happen in just a few generations’: These animals are evolving fastest
Evolution occurs over millennia, but it can also happen in just a few generations. ... "I don't know if any particular ...
What are apes trying to communicate when they use gestures. Is there an evolutionary link to humans?
Apes, [...] do not inherit specific gestures, but they do inherit the sense that they can use gestures to communicate ...
The bigger the animal, the bigger its brain? Not so fast
Scientists have long believed that, generally speaking, the bigger an animal is, the bigger its brain. But our recent study challenges ...
Nutritional epigenetics: How life events can shape your genes and their impact on diet and health
Within the last century, researchers’ understanding of genetics has undergone a profound transformation ...
Human’s ability to digest carbs evolved as we went from hunter-gatherers to farmers
Scientists have long suspected that humans’ ability to digest starch may have increased after our ancestors transitioned from a hunter-gatherer ...
Backward evolution? Brain impairment? Scientists probe guesses on why the Türkish family Ulas walks on all fours
The Ulas family, in southern Türkiye, is like no other. For the last two decades, some of its members have ...
The fossils that evolution forgot: Lungfish DNA 30-times bigger than ours
We already knew that the genomes of lungfish are huge, but how gigantic they really are and what can be ...
‘We live at a time where cultural evolution can be very, very, very rapid, but our biological evolution seems relatively stunted.’
In modern times, our lives have changed tremendously by gaining control over nature. The advent of vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and ...
Anatomically modern humans may not have originated in Africa’s Rift Valley
The story of our species begins in Africa, although our ability to tell that story is based on patchy evidence ...
From Sitting Bull to Beethoven: Scientists are using DNA to create geneaological maps for people with murky histories
In the decade or so since scientists reported the first ancient human genome sequence, they have generated genome data for ...
Viewpoint: Polygenic screening allows parents to ‘choose the very best children’ — Ethical questions abound
Emerging technology is about to present parents with a set of ethical questions that make the usual kinds of debates ...
How anti-Semitism shaped the genes of Jewish people
Evidence of past outrages is not only in the history books. It's also written in our genomes ...
Unearthing the Shire? 3-foot tall Hobbit-sized human ancestor bone found in Indonesia
The remains of a member of the smallest ancient human species on record, who stood at just 1m tall, have ...
A futurist says our species evolves in 3 phases: With 1 down, here’s what may come next
Jeffrey Charles Hardy introduces a three-tiered model of human evolution—the “First, Suspended, and Second Human Evolution.” Standing back and viewing ...
GLP podcast: China bans ‘irresponsible’ germline editing; losing weight causes cancer? Modern culture could drive mental health issues
China has banned germline gene editing, calling the technology, "irresponsible and not permitted." A recent study suggested that losing weight ...
Hidden threat to wild bees? Honeybees, including those raised by well-meaning suburbanites and city-dweller hobbyists believing they are helping the environment
Canada is home to more than 800 species of wild bees — few may have noticed the diversity of native ...
Do fetuses talk in the womb? How accents form before birth
Some restless infants don’t wait for birth to let out their first cry. They cry in the womb, a rare ...
Is there such a thing as ‘plant behavior’?
We are just beginning to glimpse the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of plants’ relations with their environment, with each other ...
As ancient humans moved north, how did they survive the cold?
Gene alteration likely enhanced body heat generation among early humans who moved to colder climates, researchers say ...
