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LATEST ARTICLES ( 510 )

• Neanderthal Genes Helped Humans Adapt

  

  Neanderthals were our cousins who lived in Europe from 600,000 to ~30,000 years ago. Despite being quite different from us there were enough genetic similaritie... Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neanderthals More Innovative Than We Thought?

  

  Some classic Mousterian toolsNeanderthals created and used a suite of stone tools known as the Mousterian industry. When this toolkit was first created 200,000... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Surprising Human Hand Bone Challenges Evolution

  

  The Institute for Creation Research is an organisation which spins science news to support the notion that the earth was created 6,000 or so years ago. Read more

  Posted on 27 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Chimps Have Undergone More Positive Selection Than Humans

  

  Humans and chimps share a common ancestor, which split into two species some point between 7 – 14 million years ago. We often assume that this common ancestor... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Humans and Chimps Diverged Earlier Than Previously Thought; Part 2

  

  Genetic data indicates humans and chimps split ~7 million years ago. This is typically calculated by looking at how many mutations separate us from chimps and... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Evolution of the Family

  

  In humans the entire family helps raise the child. The amount each person contributes varies from culture to culture, but in no society does the mother raise... Read more

  Posted on 21 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dogs Evolved to Be Cute

  

  A 33,000 year old proto-dog skull from BeligumWolves were one of the first animals to be domesticated, with genetic data indicating it may have occurred as earl... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Chimps Abandon Social Norm for Prizes

  Living in a big social group brings all sorts of advantages, but there are a few downsides. One of the oft forgotten ones is peer pressure. Read more

  Posted on 05 January 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Bonobos Beginning to Diverge

  

  The Bonobo territory, criss-crossed with riversBonobos are cousins of the common chimp, famous for being less violent and more sexually liberal than their... Read more

  Posted on 22 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mutation Increases Size of Hippocampus

  

  Interestingly wikipedia tells me the hippocampus is named after the seahorse (whose latin name is Hippocampus), as it resembles oneThe hippocampus is a region o... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Did We Move Before We Walked Upright?

  

  There’s something of a paradox in the story of human evolution. Chimps are our closet living relatives and they knuckle-walk. Yet there’s no evidence of any of... Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Are Orang-utans Our Closest Living Relatives?

  

  This week we have another excellent question (abridged slightly) from Art, who asks….In 1987, as you probably know, Schwartz published THE RED APE, in which he... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• 400,000 Year Old DNA Confuses and Surprises (conprises?)

  

  Atapuerca is a series of Spanish caves that document almost a million years of human pre-history, from 1.2 million years ago to a mere 200,000 years ago. Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Lawsuit Aims to Grant Rights to Chimps Involved in Research

  Last week the Nonhuman rights project filed a lawsuit on behalf of two chimps, arguing that they are sufficiently intelligent and self-aware to deserve some... Read more

  Posted on 09 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Stone Tipped Spears Used 500,000 Years Ago

  

  Combining two tools with binding and glue (e.g. creating a spear out of a wooden shaft and stone tip) is known as “hafting.” This combined technology was an... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Skull Spotting Part 2

  

  As the new Dmanisi finds show, species can be difficult to spot and define in the fossil record. To circumvent this problem some palaeoanthropologists divide th... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Early Humans Were Hunting 1.8 Million Years Ago

  

  Modern humans eat more meat than any other living ape. Although chimps have been seen hunting with spears, meat still only makes up ~3% of their diet yet it... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Skull Spotting: Part 1

  

  A little while ago I was chatting to the author of the excellent eyeontheicr about the recent Dmanisi finds. He asked me how one identifies various hominin... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Creationist Claims Dmanisi Fossil is a Fraud

  

  Last month research was published on a skull from the 1.7 million year old site of Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossil (known as skull 5) showed that a single... Read more

  Posted on 25 November 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Did Neanderthals and Humans Interbreed?

  

  Some time between 300 – 600,000 years ago humans diverged from the Neanderthals. However, this wasn’t the end of our genetic interaction. Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2013 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE