Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

A timeline of genetic changes in millions of years of human evolution shows that variants linked to higher intelligence appeared most rapidly around 500,000 years ago, and were closely followed by ...

Saini Samim receives funding from the Melbourne Research Schorship provided by the University of Melbourne. She has also received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Turkana Basin ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like ...

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

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.

Food processing has been a part of human adaptation since deep in the past. The softening and breaking down of food left its testimony on the human body. For example, the massive teeth of our early ...

Fossils nearly three-quarters of a million years old, discovered in North Africa, may belong to a common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans that lived shortly before the three ...