evolution
Podcast: What would have happened if Darwin and Mendel had been on Twitter?
Where would we be now if Darwin and Mendel had been on Twitter? ...
Tracing the birth of new languages—as older tongues fade away
Anthropologists and linguists are working to understand how complex systems of communication emerge—and what they reveal about how to keep ...
66 million years ago a deadly asteroid struck Earth. Scientists just found a fish killed by the impact
At one of the most important ancient graveyards on Earth in North Dakota, paleontologists unearthed the fossilized remains of fish ...
Hues of the past: How we determine the colors of prehistoric animals
[Paleontologist Maria McNamara] studies tissues from insects and vertebrates in order to envision what these critters looked like and how ...
How modern farming may be distorting our analysis of ancient human migration
One of the most widely used tools archaeologists have at their disposal to decipher where prehistoric humans lived and traveled ...
‘Dramatic’ skull chunk discovery could tell us more about the mysterious Denisovans
Fragments of a hominin skull add to the sparse collection from our obscure cousins ...
Making the case for early human migration into rain forests
In the past, researchers believed humans were almost exclusively adapted to savanna environments. Previous hypotheses suggested Homo sapiens ... spread ...
Vulnerability to mental illness may have given humans an evolutionary advantage
Nearly one in five Americans currently suffers from a mental illness, and roughly half of us will be diagnosed with ...
New study claims first farmers in Europe were direct descendants of region’s hunter-gatherers, challenging belief migrants introduced agriculture
For several years it has been broadly acknowledged that agriculture in Europe was first established in the Anatolian peninsula in modern day ...
DNA from museum artifacts could help solve ancient mysteries—but there’s a risk
To fill some of the gaps in our understanding of aurochs evolution, [paleogenomics researcher Mikkel] Sinding looks for genetic clues ...
Podcast: Geneticist Mary-Claire King nearly quit science—then discovered the first breast cancer gene
Mary-Claire King's stellar career has covered human and chimp evolution, finding BRCA1 and reuniting families that have been torn apart ...
Why bleak, frightening dreams may make us better people
What are dreams for? A handful of theories predominate. Sigmund Freud famously contended that they reveal hidden truths and wishes. More recent ...
WTF? Did the rise of agriculture—and soft foods—give us the ability to drop F bombs?
How the foods we eat influence the sounds our languages develop ...
Evolutionary riddle: Why humans have breasts?
Over the years, researchers have proposed a number of explanations for human breasts. Some claimed evolution favored “pendulous” breasts — as scientists ...
How languages and genetics explain our origins and evolution
The twists and turns of both language and genetics offer stunning insights into human history ...
‘Good Reasons for Bad Feelings’: Understanding evolution’s role in anxiety, depression and making us human
[In] the thought-provoking Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, [evolutionary] psychiatrist Randolph Nesse offers insights that radically reframe psychiatric conditions. In his ...
Who were the Denisovans? This Siberian cave could offer answers
Samantha Brown didn’t have high hopes when she opened the ziplock bag containing some 700 shards of bone. It would ...
Why human evolution is far from over—and may be speeding up
Global studies of human DNA show that natural selection continues to change who we are ...
Far from ape-like: Neanderthals walked upright, just like us
Neanderthals walked with an upright posture just like modern humans, according to a new analysis. Over the years, reconstructions of ancient ...
Were Neanderthals doomed by their inbreeding?
Mounting evidence suggests Neanderthals also had a habit of inbreeding, or conceiving with close relatives. Several studies have now reported ...
Glowing squid’s genome sheds light on how animals and microbes evolve to work together
Every evening, nocturnal Hawaiian bobtail squids ... emerge from their burrows in shallow waters of the Pacific to hunt for ...
Purposeful evolution: Can humanity create its own ‘prosperous’ future?
[H]ow, exactly, do we create a “good” future? What does such a future look like to begin with? In Future Consciousness: ...
‘Humble beginnings’: Newly discovered T. rex ancestor was quite small
A new dinosaur shows that even Tyrannosaurus rex had humble beginnings. Dubbed Moros intrepidus, or “the harbinger of doom,” the new species is one of ...
Keen sense of smell? You’re probably good at not getting lost, study suggests
Watch a bacterium chase down the source of an enticing molecular trail using chemo-taxis, and it’s clear that its sensory ...
Viewpoint: What is ‘consciousness’ and what role does it play in evolution?
One of the biggest challenges in evolutionary science is to explain the evolution of consciousness. While that is widely recognized, ...
Could this fossilized footprint belong to one of the last Neanderthals ‘ever to walk the Earth’?
Researchers have discovered an array of fossilized footprints in an ancient sand dune in Gibraltar, the small British territory on ...
Grasses that genetically modify themselves could help prevent spread of GMOs in nature
Scientists have discovered that grasses are able to short cut evolution by taking genes from their neighbors. The findings suggest ...
