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.
Language evolved 25 million years ago, monkey brain study suggests
Curious about how people started talking, researchers from the UK scanned the monkey species and the brains of the people ...
Gods of genetic engineering: With the end of ‘Homo sapiens naturalis’ approaching, what is our place in nature?
Our society has evolved so much, can we still say that we are part of Nature? If not, should we ...
If we have difficulty defining ‘life’ on earth, how will we identify it on other planets?
What does it mean to be alive? Science, shockingly, still doesn’t have a consensus. For example, is it fair to ...
Viewpoint: Human ‘evolutionary changes’ inevitable from pandemics
We all know that viruses are living organisms that can evolve and change, but did you also know that they ...
Massive genetic analysis shows how our ancestors ‘diversified, migrated and mixed’ around the world
A new study has provided the most comprehensive analysis of human genetic diversity to date, after the sequencing of 929 ...
Making the case for a ‘semi-aquatic’ phase in human evolution
For the past 150 years, scientists and laypeople alike have accepted a “savanna” scenario of human evolution. The theory, primarily ...
‘Like trying to hit a moving target’: Why it’s so difficult to attack cancer with targeted gene therapies
We are, it seems, still a long way off from a cure, in any ordinary sense of the term. Yet ...
Mysterious African skull could be part of undiscovered ‘ghost population’
A mysterious but well-preserved hominid skull found nearly a century ago comes from a population that lived in Africa around ...
Targeting cancer cells by ‘putting the brakes’ on their ability to mutate and evolve
The vast majority of cancer deaths in the US come about not because of a lack of treatment, but because ...
Discovery of microbes under ocean floor suggests life could thrive in ‘extreme environments’ like Mars
When scientists find microbial life thriving in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, it gives them hope that ...
Searching for signs of Earth’s earliest life more than ‘a needle-in-the-haystack’ problem
The search for signs of Earth’s earliest forms of life isn’t quite like looking for dinosaur bones protruding out from ...
Origins of symmetry: This ancient worm-like creature may be a key to our own evolution
A worm-like creature that burrowed on the seafloor more than 500 million years ago may be key to the evolution ...
Strange cave-fellows? Unexpected discovery suggests 3 early human species lived together in South Africa
Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in ...
Bronze age gender inequality? Analysis of 2,500-year-old teeth shows different diets for boys and girls
Analysing 2500-year-old teeth has thrown open a window onto life and gender inequality during Bronze Age China. The University of ...
What’s ‘race’ got to do with it? Most of sub-Saharan Africa emerges as coronavirus ‘cold spot’, which may offer clues to finding COVID-19 vaccine
Do diseases discriminate on the basis of 'race'—or their genetic population, using more precise terminology? On the surface, this may ...
Viewpoint: GMOs are ‘unnatural’? Evolution explodes a popular crop biotech myth
The most controversial element of biotechnology is a trick we learned by experimenting on some of the simplest life forms in ...
Identical sex chromosomes could be key to a long life
When 109-year-old Jessie Gallan was asked about the secret to her long life, she replied “staying away from men.” Other ...
Global plan to halt extinction criticized for failing to address species humans don’t like
A global plan to halt the loss of nature is "weak" in one key area, say scientists. The new 10-year ...
Ancient tool technology passed down for thousands of generations by extinct human species, study says
When it comes to extinct human species, Neanderthals tend to hog the spotlight. But another group of early humans, Homo erectus, is ...
‘Game-changer’: Europe’s ExoMars rover armed with new life-testing tool
In a new paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Jacob Heinz, my colleague at the Technical University of Berlin, and I discuss ...
Extraterrestrial protein found inside meteorite? If true, discovery bolsters pursuit of alien life
A team of researchers claim to have found a protein inside a meteorite. It would be the first protein ever ...
Podcast: Bird poop, pus, and the Manhattan project—the surprising origins of the genetic alphabet
Kat Arney explores the origins of the genetic alphabet: A, C, T and G - the four 'letters' that spell ...
Visit Mars and bring back alien life? Troubles containing coronavirus should make us wary of bringing microbes to Earth
You know what? Maybe we ought to reconsider this whole thing about looking for life on other worlds. It would ...
‘Warrior gene’: Some people may be genetically wired for aggressiveness. Should we do anything about it?
“Some people have real problems right out of the starting block. We can't dodge the responsibility for social action." ...
Human-chimp hybrid fossil discovery rewrites human evolutionary history! Uhm, maybe not.
Does the anatomy of this ancient ape upend assumptions about how human ancestors learned to walk? ...
Something’s fishy: We got arms, legs and other skeletal features from our aquatic ancestors
In his 20 years as an ichthyologist, [John Sparks has] seen a lot of fish—intact and not. He’s traveled to ...
Searching for your doppelgänger: Why it’s not so unusual to find a twin
The global reach of the web has allowed people to find others who look like an identical twin, yet share ...
Early humans may have mated with Neanderthals and Denisovans a lot more than we thought
Before we became the only remaining humans on the planet, Homo sapiens mated with Neanderthals and the closely related Denisovans. New research is now revealing ...
