Evolution has given humans countless unique features, but one body part stands out as an unsolved puzzle: the human chin. While scientists can often trace the development of various organs and ...

The idea that modern humans inherited DNA from Neanderthal ancestors is one of the 21st century’s most celebrated discoveries ...

Ancient, fossilized teeth, uncovered during a decades-long archaeology project in northeastern Ethiopia, indicate that two different kinds of hominins, or human ancestors, lived in the same place ...

One of the most complete human ancestor fossils ever found may belong to an entirely new species, according to an international research team. The famous “Little Foot” skeleton from South Africa has ...

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 ...

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.

South Africa has one of the world’s richest fossil records of hominins (humans and their fossil ancestors). But many misconceptions still exist regarding human evolution, and school textbooks contain ...