Linguists know that languages change drastically over the course of a few thousand years, so drastically that there’s no telling what the original human language was like or how it came into being. Language consists of words, not rocks, so there are no linguistic fossils comparable to the fossils in rock that reveal ancient stages…
A new university-backed project aims to investigate cryptic species such as the yeti whose existence is unproven, through genetic testing. Researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are asking anyone with a collection of cryptozoological material to submit descriptions of it. The researchers will then ask for hair and other samples for…
Archaeologists digging at a Jerusalem site have found the oldest artifact that bears the inscription of Bethlehem — a 2,700 years old seal with the name of Jesus’ traditional birthplace. The tiny clay seal’s existence and age show Bethlehem was a bustling place of trade linked to the nearby city of Jerusalem, not merely a fabled biblical town.
The transition from swimming to walking involved some awkward first steps, according to a new study that recreated how one of the first animals, which left the sea for land, moved. The study found that that the fishy four-limbed animal Ichthyostega used its front limbs like crutches, pushing its body up and forward onto land…
In a special issue on human conflict, Science Magazine considers the deep evolutionary roots of violent confrontation – tracing the trajectory of violence and war throughout history, exploring racism, ethnic conflicts, the rise of terrorism, and the possible future of armed conflicts. The editors also consider our innate capacity to mediate conflict and our ability…
Believing in an involved, morally active God makes people less likely to punish others for rule-breaking, new research finds. However, the researchers also find that religious belief in general makes people more likely to punish wrongdoers – probably because such punishment is a way to strengthen the community as a whole. In other words, religion…
Successful as it is, there are notable unsolved questions with the standard big bang theory, which suggests that the universe began as a seemingly impossible “singularity,” an infinitely small point containing an infinitely high concentration of matter, expanding in size to what we observe today. The theory of inflation, a super-fast expansion of space proposed…
Chimpanzees and orangutans really do have personalities “like people”, researchers say. For years experts have debated whether great apes truly display human-like personalities – or if such behavior is simply the anthropomorphic projections of human observers. The research team used a statistical technique to “remove” any biases apparent in human observers of the apes’ behaviour,…
The “prisoner’s dilemma” is a classic psychology game used to study how collaboration evolves in animal societies. Now, a pair of mathematicians have identified a new way of playing the game that allows a player to do significantly better than their opponent. Whereas most winning strategies involve playing nice, the new method relies on playing…
A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Beth Archie and colleagues from Princeton and Duke Universities finds that high-ranking male baboons recover more quickly from injuries and are less likely to become ill than other males. Archie, Jeanne Altmann of Princeton and Susan Alberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon…