Latest Human evolution Stories

LSU’s Mark Batzer, along with research associate Jerilyn Walker and assistant professor Miriam Konkel, have published research determining that modern-day orangutans are host to ancient jumping genes called Alu, which are more than 16 million years old. The study was done in collaboration with the Zoological Society of San Diego and the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle and is featured in the new open access journal Mobile DNA. These tiny pieces of mobile DNA are able to copy...

Cypress distribution reflects the breakup of Pangaea In classical mythology, the cypress tree is associated with death, the underworld and eternity. Indeed, the family to which cypresses belong, is an ancient lineage of conifers, and a new study of their evolution affords a unique insight into a turbulent era in the Earth’s history. During the geological era known as the Mesozoic, the continental crust was concentrated in a single huge landmass, the supercontinent Pangea. Pangea began...

Study in Congo protected area helps researchers understand selective factors in gorilla behavior and reproduction Conservationists with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have found that larger male gorillas living in the rainforests of Congo seem to be more successful than smaller ones at attracting mates and even raising young. The study—conducted over a 12-year period in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of...

A new analysis of ancient DNA belonging to a quartet of Stone Age humans has shed new light on how agriculture may have spread from the Middle East into Europe, the Associated Press (AP) and AFP reported on Thursday. The study, which was completed by researchers at a trio of Swedish and Danish universities and published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, looked at the genetic material from 5,000 year old bones belonging to one farmer and three hunter gatherers, according to those...

Humans that populated the banks of the river Manzanares (Madrid, Spain) during the Middle Palaeolithic (between 127,000 and 40,000 years ago) fed themselves on pachyderm meat and bone marrow. This is what a Spanish study shows and has found percussion and cut marks on elephant remains in the site of Preresa (Madrid). In prehistoric times, hunting animals implied a risk and required a considerable amount of energy. Therefore, when the people of the Middle Palaeolithic (between 127,000 and...

Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant...

Diets rich in meat helped early mother’s wean their babies at an earlier age and allowed them to have more children, behaviors that may have helped humans spread more quickly across the world and had a profound effect on human evolution, according to new research. Researchers from Lund University in Sweden, publishing their work in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, found a clear connection between eating meat and weaning at an earlier age. They discovered that all mammalian species stop...

Findings provide tools for better understanding of the human genome Chromosomes are strands of DNA that contain the blueprint of all living organisms. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes that instruct how genes are regulated during development of the human body. While scientists have developed an understanding of the one-dimensional structure of DNA, until today, little was known about how different parts of DNA are folded next to each other inside the nucleus. Using a powerful DNA...

Researchers studying human origins should develop standards for determining whether markings on fossil bones were made by stone tools or by biting animals, Indiana University faculty member Jackson Njau writes in an article this week in the journal Science. Njau, a co-director of field research at paleontological sites in eastern Africa's Olduvai Gorge, notes that the lack of agreement on interpreting such marks is leading to great uncertainty over when early hominids began using tools to...

An international team of researchers say that they have identified one-million year old archaeological evidence that human ancestors used and controlled fire, suggesting that our predecessors may have mastered flame approximately 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, which was led by researchers from the University of Toronto and Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), resulted in the discovery...