Our species, Homo sapiens, has been evolving for more than 300,000 years, but the story of human origins starts much earlier.

Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

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 ...

Humans are the only primates that run nearly naked under the sun. Here’s how this biological tradeoff reshaped how our ...

For thousands of years, humans have selectively bred dogs to fulfill specific roles, ranging from guarding and hunting to herding and companionship. This deliberate shaping of traits has resulted in ...

We are indeed still evolving, though it can be hard to tell because it happens over generations and often involves things you can't see, such as what foods different people are able to digest. When ...

A paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution finds that the relatively high rate of autism-spectrum disorders in humans is likely due to how humans evolved in the past. The paper is titled "A general ...

On Valentine’s Day in 2018, a team of scientists walked across a flat expanse in the badlands of northeastern Ethiopia, scanning the ground for fossils. An eagle-eyed field assistant, Omar Abdulla, ...

Throughout most of human history, evolution progressed slowly. Small genetic changes took thousands of years to permeate populations. Natural selection was intentional, reactive, and gradual. However, ...

Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—driven not by genes, but by culture. "Human evolution seems to be changing ...