Human Origins / Human Evolution

The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains

A broken symmetry from our evolutionary heritage is part of what makes us human. 04.15.2009

The Best New Science Books

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Area 51, modern life vs human nature, and more 02.20.2009

We All Live in Darwin's World

“Survival of the fittest” is helping us understand not only the origin of species but also love, politics, and even the cosmos. 02.11.2009

They Don't Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To

Our species—and individual races—have recently made big evolutionary changes to adjust to new pressures. 02.09.2009

DISCOVER Does Darwin: Special Section on Evolution

The future of Homo sapiens, genetic proof of evolution, the next Galapagos, and more. 02.04.2009

Evolution by Intelligent Design

Bioengineers will likely control the future of humans as a species. 02.02.2009

#34: Anti-Malaria Gene Boosts HIV Vulnerability

An adaptation against tropical disease makes people of African descent more prone to AIDS. 12.16.2008

#36: Creationism Lurks in Public High Schools

One in six teachers say they believe the earth is 6,000 years old. 12.15.2008

#42: Geneticists Uncover the Origin of Blue Eyes

A single genetic mutation gives life to baby blues. 12.14.2008

#64: Spain Gives Great Apes Legal Rights

The animals have the right to life and protection from harmful research practices. 12.10.2008

#66: Natural Selection Helped Indonesians Find the Perfect Canoe

Darwinian-style evolution pushes cultural change, a new paper argues. 12.10.2008

#76: Europe’s Oldest Hominid Makes Its Debut

Archaeologists in Spain uncover the remains of a 1.2-million-year-old human. 12.09.2008

#84: 9,000-Year-Old Milk Cartons Found

A new study examines the world's oldest cattle ranchers. 12.08.2008

#85: Smackdown Over Ancient "Hobbit" Continues

A mysterious skeleton puzzles scientists who wonder if it was human. 12.08.2008

He Found the Innate Humanity in the Human Brain

“Noam Chomsky’s position in the history of ideas is comparable to that of Darwin or Descartes.” 12.01.2008

3 Diseases We May Be Able to Blame on Our Ancient Ancestors

Obesity, lactose intolerance, and high blood pressure may all be traceable to hunter-gatherer survival. 11.27.2008

The Man Who Found That "Genes Hold Culture on a Leash"

Edward O. Wilson looked at ants and made fundamental discoveries about humans. 11.17.2008

Mom and Dad Are Fighting in Your Genes—and in Your Brain

Our brains may contain a battle of the sexes that can cause schizophrenia and autism. 11.10.2008

Why Darwin Would Have Loved Botox

All those wrinkle-causing winces, smirks, and sneers may have been the product of evolution. 10.15.2008

The "Monkey Whisperer" Learns the Secrets of Primate Economics

Laurie Santos penetrates the world of monkeys... and finds they're more like humans than we think. 10.13.2008

Forecasting the Future May Be a Matter of Fun and Games

A new online game uses crowdsourcing to find out how to save humans from extinction. 09.05.2008

How to Teach Science to the Pope

The Vatican keeps close tabs on the latest science—and integrates new research into its modern theology. 08.18.2008

Does Intelligent Design Seek to Undo Modern Science?

Biologist Kenneth Miller thinks so. 07.11.2008

Laughter May Outlive Humans—and Even Numbers

Chimps and orangutans agree: Humor is truly fundamental. 06.27.2008

Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?

Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago. 05.20.2008

The Extinct Human Species That Was Smarter Than Us

The superintelligent Boskops had small, childlike faces and huge melon heads. 03.21.2008

Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?

Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear. 03.13.2008

Your Inner Fish

Learn to love your body for what it really is: a jury-rigged fish. 02.21.2008

Did Life Evolve in Ice?

Funky properties of frozen water may have made life possible. 02.01.2008

96. And Here's Why You Have an Appendix:

When you're sick, it re-boots your gut with good bacteria. 01.15.2008

74. Musical Scales Mimic the Sound of Language

The harmonics of human vocalization may generate the frequencies used in music. 01.14.2008

8. Can Vitamin D Save Your Life?

New studies highlight the importance of the forgotten vitamin. 12.12.2007

Whatever Happened To... the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis?

How else to explain naked skin, enlarged mammaries, subcutaenous fat... 12.05.2007

Schizophrenia: The Curse That's Almost a Blessing

The disease may be the twisted flipside of an evolutionary boost. 11.13.2007

Shifty Eyes Provide Super Human Vision

Without jittery eye motion, our most powerful sense is blunted. 10.02.2007

One Universe, Under God

Creationism battles for the hearts and minds of America’s teachers. 10.01.2007

Out of Africa, All of Us

The great debate of human origins finally gets settled . . . maybe. 09.13.2007

He Thinks, She Thinks

Gender differences show up in the brain. 07.05.2007

The Simplistic Manifesto

Intelligent design misses the point. Again. 07.02.2007

Was Lucy a Brutal Brawler?

These legs were made for fighting. 06.26.2007

Review: Meet the Ancestors

A jazzy new Hall of Human Origins opens at the American Museum of Natural History 05.21.2007

How Europeans Got to Europe

45,000-year-old carvings found in Russia 04.23.2007

Why We Get Diseases Other Primates Don't

New research might explain why HIV kills only humans. 09.01.2006

Nice Guys Didn't Finish the Neolithic

New evidence for clubbing cavemen. 08.06.2006

Hand Walkers and Media Circuses

Provocative science thrusts a bizarre Turkish family into the limelight 06.25.2006

Origin Of The Ear

Once, it was more of a nose. 05.28.2006

Born To Run

Humans can outrun nearly every other animal on the planet over long distances. 05.28.2006

The Discover Interview: John McCarter

The head of Chicago's Field Museum lends a powerful new voice to the evolution debate 05.28.2006

Are We All Asians?

Renegade anthropologists rethink where humans came from. 05.27.2006

First Americans

Skulls show who got here first. 12.13.2005

Human Origins

Common hospital gear opens up a new way of reconstructing Homo sapiens' ancestors. 10.24.2005

Missing Links Found

Humans - 37 million years ago. 10.18.2005

More Hobbit Bones

Frodos from Flores are multiplying. 10.14.2005

How Loyal Was Lucy?

How Loyal Was Lucy? 09.09.2005

Darwin's Rottweiler

Sir Richard Dawkins: Evolution's fiercest champion, far too fierce 09.08.2005

Brains Study Brains

07.24.2005

Discover Dialogue: Evolutionary Biologist Mark Pagel

Human cultural groups have behaved as if they were different species 05.01.2005

Think Tank

Great scientists discuss the breakthroughs of the last quarter century—and the next 03.31.2005

This Is Your Ancestor

When microbiologist Mitchell Sogin decided to trace human evolution to its roots, he had no idea he might find sponges 11.25.2004

Discover Dialogue: Anthropologist Robert Martin

Did our primate ancestors make their debut during the age of the dinosaurs? 07.25.2004

Useless Body Parts

What do we need sinuses for, anyway? 06.26.2004

Biology

01.02.2004

Human Origins

01.02.2004

Hydra of My Heart

12.03.2003

Great Mysteries of Human Evolution

New discoveries rewrite the book on who we are and where we came from 09.01.2003

Survivor

Older, more primitive skulls from Eurasia and Africa are changing what we thought we knew about where we came from 03.01.2003

Human Origins

01.01.2003

Not Out of Africa

Alan Thorne's challenging ideas about human evolution 08.01.2002

Human Origins

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Under T.Rex's Toes

06.01.2000

Cooking Ourselves

11.01.1999

Evolutionary Mess

10.01.1999

Japanese Roots

Just who are the Japanese? Where did they come from and when? 06.01.1998

The Year in Science: Human Origins 1997

Footprints from the human dawn 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Human Origins 1997

Out of Africa and Back 01.01.1998

The Third Man

For over a century the low-browed Homo erectus has sparked scientific fascination about our origins--and not-so-scientific ramblings about the meaning of race. 09.01.1997

Enigmatic Apes

08.01.1997

Mr. Wallace's Line

Through the ocean just east of Borneo runs an invisible line that separates the world of tigers from the world of kangaroos. Getting across that line may have seen what made our ancestors truly human. 08.01.1997

Are We in Anthropodenial?

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us. 07.01.1997

The Piltdown Perp

01.01.1997

The Monkey at Dawn

01.01.1997

The Face of an Ancestral Child

The remains of an 11-year-old who lived and died 800,000 years ago have been found in northern Spain, at a place called Atapuerca. The child's people may have been the ancestors of Neanderthals. But the child's face was ours. 12.01.1996

Sunset on the Savanna

Why do we walk? For decades anthropologists said that we became bipedal to survive on the African savanna. 07.01.1996

Why Women Change

Why are human females hobbled in their prime by menopause? 07.01.1996

A Brain That Talks

Our brains are much like those of our primate cousins, so where did we get our uniquely human gift of speech? One human says we simply rewired brain structures devoted to a different, more general primate specialty--vision. 06.01.1996

Walking at Turkana

01.01.1996

Darwin's Rib

09.01.1995

The Neanderthal Peace

For perhaps 50,000 years, two radically different types of human lived side by side in the same small land. And for all those millennia, the two apparently had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Why in the world not? 09.01.1995

Early Signifiers

05.01.1995

Erectus Rising

Oh no. Not this. The hominids are acting up again. 09.01.1994

Oh, Rubbish

08.01.1994

Coming to America

When did humans arrive here? Was it the long-accepted date of 11,200 years ago, or 10,000 years earlier? A remarkably detailed site in Chile may finally give us the answer. 10.01.1993

Who Peopled the Planet?

Prehistorians really agree that all of us originally came out of Africa. It's the details that cause a paleoanthropological donnybrook. 11.01.1992

The Dating Game

By tracking changes in ancient atoms, archeologists are establishing the astonishing antiquity of modern humanity. 09.01.1992

Eve and Her Tree

07.01.1992



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