"Human children grow at a uniquely slow pace by comparison with other mammals. When and where did this schedule evolve? Have technological advances, farming and cities had any effect upon it?

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

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 ...

New research has revealed an incredible discovery: modern humans carry 20% of their genetic material from a mysterious population that split from our ancestors 1.5 million years ago. This study ...

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.

Studying human evolution involves piecing together scattered clues about how we survived against tough odds. One of the biggest mysteries is understanding how large or small ancient human populations ...

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 ...

Camille Berthelot is in the Department of Genomes and Genetics, the Pasteur Institute, Paris Cité University, CNRS UMR 3525, INSERM UA12, F-75015 Paris, France. Using an exceptionally rare collection ...

The mystery of the origin of human language has captivated scientists for centuries, and it remains one of the most ...

Over the past year or two, we have been exploring what we termed the origins—or the embryology—of human development. We examined the three pillars of development: Feelings (Affects), Language, and ...

All vertebrate species have a pelvis, but only humans use it for upright, two-legged walking. The evolution of the human pelvis, and our two-legged gait, dates back 5 million years, but the precise ...