News
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Master gene found for insect smell
A single gene may oversee the sense of smell in a variety of insect species.
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AnthropologyInside view of our wee, ancient cousins
A tiny, humanlike species that inhabited an Indonesian island more than 20,000 years ago possessed a brain that shared some organizational features with Homo erectus, a large-brained human ancestor that thought in complex ways.
By Bruce Bower -
Faces elicit strong emotions in autism
Children with autism avoid eye contact because they experience uncomfortably intense emotional reactions when looking at faces.
By Bruce Bower -
Infectious Evolution: Ancient virus hit apes, not our ancestors, in the genes
A potentially deadly infection wormed its way into the DNA of ancestral chimpanzees and gorillas between 4 million and 3 million years ago, thus altering the evolution of these African apes while keeping clear of human ancestors on that same continent.