Every human voice is acoustically unique. The anatomy and evolutionary history behind that fact turns out to be one of ...

Humans are overwhelmingly right-handed, but scientists have long struggled to explain why no other primate species shows anything close to the same pattern. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists say the ...

For decades, scientists believed ancient humans avoided dense rainforests, treating them as nearly impossible environments ...

Even tiny muscles around the ears hint at our evolutionary past. In many mammals, tiny ear muscles allow the outer ear (pinna ...

How can researchers know that tiny fossil teeth are millions of years old? The answer comes from volcanoes. Ethiopia's Afar region remains an active rifting zone, shaped by tectonic forces and ...

Some 4,000 years ago, as ancient civilizations such as the Minoans in Crete and the Neo-Sumerian Empire in Mesopotamia were shaping cultures in Europe and the Middle East, human biology itself was ...

Over the past 10,000 years, natural selection has contributed to the evolution of nearly 500 genes in the DNA of West Eurasians, affecting their looks and susceptibility to different illnesses, a new ...

Walking on two legs has long been considered a milestone in human evolution and one of our most defining characteristics. Until now, researchers assumed that the first humans originated in Africa and ...

In 1758, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus gave humans a scientific name: Homo sapiens, which means "wise human" in Latin. Although Linnaeus grouped humans with other apes, it was English biologist ...

Human evolution has long been tied to growing brain size, and new research suggests prenatal hormones may have played a surprising role. By studying the relative lengths of index and ring fingers — a ...

Jawbones and other remains, similar to specimens found in Europe, were dated to 773,000 years and help close a gap in Africa’s fossil record of human origins. By Franz Lidz Researchers on Wednesday ...

Fossils unearthed in Morocco from a little-understood period of human evolution may help scientists resolve a long-standing mystery: Who came before us? Three jawbones, including one from a child, ...