Scientists don’t ask how some people evolved to be tall. In the same way, asking how homosexuality evolved is the wrong question. We need to ask how human sexuality evolved in all its forms.
Imitation is the sincerest form of being human?
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A quirk of psychology that affects the way people learn from others may have helped unlock the complicated technologies and rituals that human culture hinges on.
A capuchin monkey in Brazil hoists a stone tool to crack open nuts.
Luca Antonio Marino
Capuchin monkeys in Brazil use big stones to crush the shells of nuts they want to eat. An experiment in the field investigated how these monkeys prepare to use new, unfamiliar tools.
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
The site at Ngandong held the remains of the last known members of the ancient human species Homo erectus.
Researchers say it’s time to finally discard a decades-old theory about the origins of human language – and revise the date when human ancestors likely were able to make certain speech noises.
A recent study conducted by Brookings Institute researchers found artificial intelligence could “affect work in virtually every occupational group”. However, it’s yet to be seen exactly how jobs will be impacted.
SHUTTERSTOCK
As machine automation and artificial intelligence surge, there’s paranoia our jobs will be overrun by robots. But even if this happens, work won’t disappear, because humans need it.
We have more neurons in our cortices than any other species, courtesy of an early technology – and along with them came our long, slow lives, with plenty of chances to gather around the dinner table.
Researcher Vanessa Hayes with the Ju/’hoansi people in the ancestral homeland of humanity.
Chris Bennett/Evolving Picture
Genetic analysis has traced the evolutionary footsteps of modern humans all the way back to a prehistoric wetland that spanned parts of modern-day Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Denisova Cave in Siberia has a rich fossil history of early humans - and deposits of droppings from hyenas, wolves and even bears, according to a new analysis of the cave’s dirt floor.
Environmental change can be a slow creep towards disaster for species. We studied how prehistoric humans coped to help make sense of the future using video game technology.
Milling grain meant less wear and tear on neolithic teeth, which had other effects on language.
Juan Aunion/Shutterstock.com
Considering language from a biological perspective led researchers to the idea that new food processing technologies affected neolithic human beings’ jaws – and allowed new language sounds to emerge.
New technology means accessing new information from ancient human remains, some which have been in collections for decades.
Duckworth Laboratory
Ancient DNA allows scientists to learn directly from the remains of people from the past. As this new field takes off, researchers are figuring out how to ethically work with ancient samples and each other.
Our brains evolved in a world without reading.
Semnic/Shutterstock
Reading and writing may have evolved thanks to a natural ability of the brain’s visual cortex to process geometrical shapes.
Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts, Vladimir Uliyanov and Maxim Kozlikin (clockwise from top) examining sediments in the East Chamber of Denisova Cave.
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Author provided
New studies reveal when the Denisovans and their Neanderthal cousins occupied a cave in southern Siberia. It’s the only site known to have been inhabited by them and by modern humans.
Archaeological excavation at Ain Boucherit, Algeria.
Mathieu Duval