Longer thumbs mean bigger brains, scientists have found—revealing how human hands and minds evolved together. Researchers studied 94 different primate species, including fossils and living animals, to ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Andréa Morris reports on emergent intelligence in diverse systems. “Where are all the genetic cures?” asks Denis Noble, a ...

Smithsonian paleoanthropologists reveal some of the year’s most fascinating findings about human origins Ryan McRae and Briana Pobiner An artist's depiction of a person carving a pendant from bones of ...

Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other ...

Yet modern biology has revealed that cells are preternaturally sophisticated assemblages — literally automated, miniaturized factories. How could the evidence have been overwhelming but now orthodoxy ...

Cold-adapted animals started to evolve 2.6 million years ago when the permanent ice at the poles became more prevalent. There followed a time when the continental ice sheets expanded and contracted ...

The Indigenous peoples of the Bolivian highlands are survivors. For thousands of years they have lived at altitudes of more than two miles, where oxygen is about 35 percent lower than at sea level.

When Aristotle claimed that humans differ from other animals because they have the ability to be rational, he understood rational to mean that we could form our views and beliefs based on evidence, ...

Life changes over time. Of course, it does. We know this thanks to a wealth of converging evidence in the form of millions of fossils, clear genetic clues, and observations made out in the field and ...