Some of the smallest organisms might have influenced our own evolutionary path. A new study has found that the distribution of malaria in Africa in the last 70,000 years could hav ...

In a recent review published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, researchers discussed the role of climatic shifts and vegetation changes in driving the evolution within the subfamily ...

When our distant ancestors first traded nomadic life for farming, villages, and permanent homes, you might assume that the beastly forces of natural selection lost their ability to shape our species, ...

In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an exciting find hits the headlines, palaeoanthropology and its related fields ...

The first complete genetic portrait of a so‑called “last Neanderthal” is forcing scientists to redraw the map of our origins, from who we met to how we survived. Instead of a simple story of ...

Over 100,000 years ago, a mysterious group of ancient humans walked the lands of eastern Asia. Known as the Juluren—meaning “large head people”—they’ve recently been introduced to science under the ...

Scientists analyze 22,000 genomes documenting hundreds of genetic changes due to natural selection over the past 10,000 years ...

A composite view of the Earth constructed by NASA from multiple satellite images Editor at Large Human evolution is a story writ slow. It’s been about 3.8 billion years since life on Earth emerged and ...

What took so long for humans to appear on Earth? The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological species we know of in the ...