Human Evolution

Victorian mores influenced ideas not just about men and women but animals too.

How Victorian Gender Norms Shaped the Way We Think About Animal Sex

No, females aren't always choosy and males don't always get around

Synesthesia, or the entangling of the senses, may be much more common than once thought.

One in Five People May Be Able to "Hear" a Flash of Light

Once thought to be a rare condition, some forms of synesthesia may be fairly common

The doormouse hibernates to conserve resources in harsh conditions. Similarly, scientists envision humans hibernating to endure long-distance space travel.

Can Humans Ever Harness the Power of Hibernation?

Scientists want to know if astronauts can hibernate during long spaceflights. First, they need to understand what hibernation is

Macaques and humans seem to share the strength of knowing the limits of what they know.

A Wise Monkey Knows How Little He Knows

Japanese scientists find that macaque monkeys, like humans, know the limits of their own memory

The Part of Your Brain That Recognizes Faces Continues Growing Later in Life

That is, at least until you hit 30

Video: Why Should Humans Care About Preserving the Diversity of Life on Earth?

This animation explains that humans don't just impact the interconnected web of life—we depend on it

Caption: Six pairs of hand and footprints were discovered in 1998, including two that are small enough to have belonged to children.

Footprints Found at Ancient Hot Springs Could Represent Earliest Settlement of Tibetan Plateau

New age measurements of the footprints help pinpoint when humans first settled the highest region on Earth

J. Calvin Coffey holds up a model of the mesentery

Meet Your Newest Organ: The Mesentery

Scientists are calling for an upgrade in classification of this vital gut membrane

Caesarean Births Could Be Affecting Human Evolution

But it’s too soon to know for sure

Fossil Footprints Show Movements of Our Early Ancestors

The trace fossils found in Tanzania spurred a debate about how early hominids lived

To speak, perchance to think? A long-tailed macaque opens wide in Bali, Indonesia.

What's Really Keeping Monkeys From Speaking Their Minds? Their Minds

When it comes to language, primates have all the right vocal equipment. They just lack the brains

Electronic waste, shown here, is just part of the "technosphere," which comprises the totality of the stuff humans produce.

Humans Have Bogged Down the Earth with 30 Trillion Metric Tons of Stuff, Study Finds

The authors say this is more proof that we are living in an Age of Humans—but not all scientists agree

Human and Neanderthal skulls

Why Humans Don't Have More Neanderthal DNA

The mutations humans acquired from Neanderthals are slowly being purged from the genome overtime

The Warryti Rock Shelter in the Flinders Range

Aboriginal Australians Lived In Country's Interior 10,000 Years Earlier Than Thought

Excavations at a rock shelter in the Flinders Range shows people were there 49,000 years ago, hunting megafauna and developing new tools

Striations on teeth of a Homo habilis fossil 1.8 million years old suggest the earliest evidence in the fossil record for right-handedness. Researchers believe the marks came from using a tool to try to cut food being pulled from the mouth with the left hand.

Two-Million-Year-Old Jaw Has a Lot to Say About the Origins of Human Handedness

Scientists have discovered one of the earliest examples of handedness in an ancient human

Neanderthals May Have Given Us Both Good Genes and Nasty Diseases

DNA analysis shows ancient hominds transmitted genes that may have helped us adapt quicker to Europe and Asia. They also gave us HPV.

Wild capuchins make stone tools, but don't know how to use them.

Wild Monkeys Unintentionally Make Stone Age Tools, But Don't See the Point

Scientists observe a “unique” human behavior in wild animals

Anthropologists have long debated the origins of human violence.

Can Resource Scarcity Really Explain a History of Human Violence?

Data from thousands of California burial sites suggests that a lack of resources causes violence. But that conclusion may be too simplistic

María Esther Heredia Lecaro de Capovilla lived to be 116 years and 347 days old. Here she is at age 115.

Have Humans Hit Their Maximum Lifespan?

Researchers say 115 years old is the ceiling for most of us—with a few outliers able to live a bit longer

Doggonit: Genes That Make Fido Human Friendly Also Linked to Mental Disorders

Dogs’ diversity could make them vulnerable to disorders similar to OCD and autism

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