More than a decade after the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced, scientists are still working to understand how human-specific DNA changes shaped human evolution. It's just over a decade since ...

Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

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 at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—driven not by genes, but by culture. "Human evolution seems to be changing ...

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.

A glass of milk can still mark a line through humanity. For most adults, drinking it brings discomfort because the body follows the older mammalian pattern, shutting down the enzyme lactase after ...

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 ...

Evolution is perhaps the most extraordinary story ever told—a tale spanning billions of years that connects every living thing on Earth through an intricate web of shared ancestry. From the tiniest ...