Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

The work demonstrates the power of ancient DNA to illuminate human biology and medicine in addition to history. A massive ...

There was a moment in human history when our entire existence may have desperately clung to a thousand or more people.

Human aging is not what natural selection failed to prevent. It is what happens when selection simply has nothing left to act ...

Walking on two legs has long been considered a milestone in human evolution and one of our most defining characteristics. Until now, researchers assumed that the first humans originated in Africa and ...

Data from more than 15,000 ancient people reveal natural selection of hundreds of genes linked to immunity, skin tone, ...

A skull fragment discovered over fifty years ago on the banks of the Elbe River in Germany has finally yielded its secrets. Long considered by some researchers to be a rare Neanderthal-modern human ...

As early humans spread from lush African forests into grasslands, their need for ready sources of energy led them to develop a taste for grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy plant tissue ...

Researchers discovered that autism’s prevalence may be linked to human brain evolution. Specific neurons in the outer brain evolved rapidly, and autism-linked genes changed under natural selection.

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the four billion years of our ...