Dun dun. Dun dun. Dun dun dun dun dun. Hear that. It's the music I'm obligated to make because JAWS was the biggest news story of the week. Well, actually just the one jaw. Also, other stuff happened; read on to find out what.
- Lets get the pay off for my bad opening joke out the way first. A recently discovered fossil jaw may push the origin of the Homo (our) genus back 400,000 years. That might not seem like much on the grand scheme of things; but it makes us older than stone tools and could help us identify the species we evolved from (read more).
- Sex now! Or rather, human strategies for getting some sex. It's a bit of a biological and/or cultural stereotype that males are a bit more ardent about sex. And there's a biological reason for this; since males invest less (biologically speaking) in offspring they benefit more from quantity over quality. However, a study examining humans found this stereotype is far from innate and mating strategies can vary highly depending on the ratio of men/women in a group (source).
- Whilst everyone is getting all excited over jaws making our genus older; redating of a Neanderthal site has made them younger. Neanderthal skeletons from La Ferrassie in France are now ~43,000 years old; which is significant because La Ferrassie also contains human-ish tools which are now shown to be ~42,000 years old. There's been big debate over whether those tools represent an early human migration, or Neanderthals learning from humans. The close proximity between the tools and the redated Neanderthals seems to suggest the latter (sauce).
- Scientists recently conducted one of the largest language studies ever, seeking to identify if we can use what we know about biological evolution to make inferences about how it evolved. The answer was yes; but language seems to evolve so rapidly that we can't use this technique to investigate too far back in time (more).
- Humans evolved in Africa and a few tens of thousands of years later began migrating elsewhere. What changed to prompt this spread? Climate has been a prime suspect for a while, with improving conditions in North Africa and/or the Middle East allowing humans out. So when did this climate shift happen? Repeatedly is the answer by a new study, identifying several "phases" of improved climate during the period in question. Did humans migrate only once? Did we try each time the climate improved? Interesting questions all round (sawce).
