Early human ancestors in central Africa 3.5 million years ago ate a diet of mostly tropical grasses and sedges, finds new research. The study suggests our relatives were mostly plant-eaters before they evolved a taste for meaty flesh. The study focused on Australopithecus bahrelghazali, which had quite a set of teeth. “No African great apes,…
A group of researchers led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has discovered the first scientific evidence of genetic blending between Europeans and Asians in the remains of ancient Scythian warriors living over 2,000 years ago in the Altai region of Mongolia. Contrary to what was believed until now, the results published in PLoS ONE…
A trove of sophisticated stone tools recently dug up from a South African cliff suggests early modern humans developed complex cognitive ability anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 years earlier than many scientists believe. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers said they had unearthed a large number of small stone blades going back…
Humans share over 90% of their DNA with their primate cousins. The expression or activity patterns of genes differ across species in ways that help explain each species’ distinct biology and behavior. DNA factors that contribute to the differences were described at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting in a presentation by Yoav…
The only modern humans whose ancestors did not interbreed with Neanderthals are apparently sub-Saharan Africans, researchers say. New findings, detailed in the journal PLoS ONE, suggest modern North Africans carry genetic traces from Neanderthals, modern humanity’s closest known extinct relatives. Although modern humans are the only surviving members of the human lineage, others once roamed…
Opsins, the light-sensitive proteins key to vision, may have evolved earlier and undergone fewer genetic changes than previously believed, according to a new study from the National University of Ireland Maynooth and the University of Bristol recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The study, which used computer modelling to provide a detailed…
Despite the ability to walk upright, early relatives of humanity represented by the famed “Lucy” fossil likely spent much of their time in trees, remaining very active climbers, researchers say. Humans are unique among living primates in that walking bipedally — on two feet — is humans’ chief mode of locomotion. This upright posture freed…
The helpfulness of grandmothers is the reason humans don’t die in their thirties the way chimpanzees do, new research shows – and may even explain our bigger brains. Computer simulations show that with only a little grandmotherly care, animals with chimpanzee lifespans evolve to reach a human level in less than 60,000 years. “Grandmothering was…
Here’s something for raw-food aficionados to chew on: Cooked food might be a big reason humans were able to grow such large brains compared to their body size, scientists say. If modern human ancestors had eaten only raw food, they’d have to regularly feed more than nine hours a day, according to a study published…
When ancestral humans walked out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago, Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies came along with them. Now the fruit flies, widely used for genetics research, are returning to Africa and establishing new populations alongside flies that never left — offering new insights into the forces that shape genetic variation. That’s…