Evolution
- Anthropology
Buff upper arms let Lucy climb trees
Australopithecus afarensis’ heavily built arms supported tree climbing, scans of Lucy’s fossils suggest.
- Humans
Animal hybrids may hold clues to Neandertal-human interbreeding
The physical effects of interbreeding among animals may offer clues to Neandertals’ genetic mark on humans.
- Neuroscience
Jessica Cantlon seeks the origins of numerical thinking
Cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Cantlon wants to find out how humans understand numbers and where that understanding comes from.
- Humans
Lawrence David’s gut check gets personal
Computational biologist Lawrence David regularly opens himself to new scientific challenges, including tracking his own microbiome.
- Archaeology
Painting claimed to be among Australia’s oldest known rock art
A painting on a cave’s ceiling may be one of Australia’s earliest examples of rock art, according to researchers who used an ancient wasps’ nest to date the art.
- Humans
Brain’s blood appetite grew faster than its size
Over evolutionary time, the energy demands of hominid brains increased faster than their volume, a new study finds.
- Science & Society
Historian traces rise of celebrity hominid fossils
In Seven Skeletons, Lydia Pyne explores the cultural histories of the most iconic fossil figures in human evolution.
- Anthropology
Notorious ‘ape-man’ fossil hoax pinned on one wrongdoer
New Piltdown Man study pegs infamous ‘ape-man’ skull forgery on one well-informed culprit.
- Anthropology
Oldest evidence of cancer in human family tree found
Bony growths on fossils may push origins of this disease way back in the Stone Age.
- Anthropology
Humans, birds communicate to collaborate
Bird species takes hunter-gatherers to honeybees’ nests when called on.
- Anthropology
New dating suggests younger age for Homo naledi
South African fossil species lived more recently than first thought, study suggests.
- Anthropology
Hobbit history gets new preface
Jaw, tooth fossils put new spin on evolution of Homo floresiensis.
