Summaries | Headlines

New Insights Into The Evolution Of The Human Genome (October 9, 2007) -- Researchers have created the first evolutionary history of the duplications in the human genome that are partly responsible for both disease and recent genetic innovations. This work marks a ... > full story

New Light Shed On The 'Hobbit' (September 25, 2007) -- Researchers have completed a new study on Homo floresiensis, commonly referred to as the "hobbit," a 3-foot-tall, 18,000-year-old hominin skeleton, discovered four years ago on the Indonesian island ... > full story

Extra Gene Copies Were Enough To Make Early Humans' Mouths Water (September 14, 2007) -- To think that world domination could have begun in the cheeks. That's one interpretation of a recent discovery which indicates that humans carry extra copies of the salivary amylase gene. Humans have ... > full story

Was Ability To Run Early Man's Achilles Heel? (September 12, 2007) -- The earliest humans almost certainly walked upright on two legs but may have struggled to run at even half the speed of modern man, new research suggests. They proposes that if early humans lacked an ... > full story

Ethiopian Plateau Formation Coincided With Climate Change That May Have Spurred Human Evolution (August 31, 2007) -- More than three million years ago, early hominins evolved the ability to walk upright and in doing so started us along the evolutionary path that eventually gave rise to Homo sapiens. It was Darwin ... > full story

Handsome By Chance: Why Humans Look Different From Neanderthals (August 16, 2007) -- Chance, not natural selection, best explains why the modern human skull looks so different from that of its Neanderthal relative. The scientists concluded that Neanderthals did not develop their ... > full story

New Kenyan Fossils Challenge Established Views On Early Evolution Of Our Genus Homo (August 13, 2007) -- Two new fossils cast fresh light on a little understood and important period of human prehistory at the dawn of our own genus, Homo. One of the two fossils, an upper jaw bone of Homo habilis (KNM-ER ... > full story

Early Modern Human Skull Includes Surprising Neanderthal Feature (August 10, 2007) -- In 1942, a human braincase was found in Romania during phosphate mining. The skull's geological age has remained uncertain. Now, new radiocarbon analysis directly dates the skull to approximately ... > full story

Genomics Study Provides Insight Into The Evolution Of Unique Human Traits (July 31, 2007) -- Researchers report the results of a large-scale, genome-wide study to investigate gene copy number differences among ten primate species, including humans. In the report, the scientists speculate how ... > full story

New Research Proves Single Origin Of Humans In Africa (July 19, 2007) -- New research has proved the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world. The research represents a final blow ... > full story

Neutral Evolution Has Helped Shape Our Genome (July 11, 2007) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have added to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans ... > full story

Book Makes Case For Using Evolution In Everyday Life (June 28, 2007) -- Evolution is not just about human origins, dinosaurs and fossils, says Binghamton University evolutionist David Sloan Wilson. It can also be applied to almost every aspect of human life, as he ... > full story

< more recent summaries | earlier summaries >

Homo (genus) -- Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. The genus is estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.5 million years old. All species except Homo sapiens are extinct. Homo ... > full article

Rhodesian Man -- Rhodesian Man (Homo rhodesiensis) is a hominin fossil that was described from a cranium found in an iron and zinc mine in Northern Rhodesia (now Kabwe, Zambia) in 1921 by Tom Zwiglaar, a Swiss miner. ... > full article

Neandertal interaction with Cro-Magnons -- Neanderthals apparently co-existed with anatomically modern humans beginning some 100,000 years ago. However, about 45,000 years ago, at about the time that stoneworking techniques similar to those ... > full article

Homo rudolfensis -- Homo rudolfensis is a fossil hominin species originally proposed in 1986 by V. P. Alexeev for the specimen Skull 1470 (KNM ER 1470). Originally thought to be a member of the species Homo habilis, the ... > full article

Homo heidelbergensis -- Homo heidelbergensis ("Heidelberg Man") is an extinct, potentially distinct species of the genus Homo and may be the direct ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis in Europe. According to the "Recent Out ... > full article

Homo erectus -- Homo erectus ("upright man") is a hominin species that is believed to be an ancestor of modern humans (with Homo heidelbergensis usually treated as an intermediary step). The species is found from ... > full article

Homo antecessor -- Homo antecessor is an extinct hominin species that was discovered by E. Carbonell, J.L. Arsuaga and J.M. Bermudez de Castro. They are one of the earliest known hominins in Europe, with those from the ... > full article

Homo ergaster -- Homo ergaster ("working man") is an extinct hominid species (or subspecies, according to some authorities) which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1.9 to 1.4 million years ago with ... > full article

Homo habilis -- Homo habilis ("handy man", "skillful person") is a species of the genus Homo, which lived from approximately 2.5 million to 1.8 million years ago at the beginning of the Pleistocene. The definition ... > full article

The evolution of human intelligence -- The nature and origins of hominid intelligence is a much-studied and much-debated topic, of natural interest to humans as the most successful and intelligent hominid species. There is no universally ... > full article

Multiregional hypothesis -- The multiregional origin hypothesis of human species holds that some, or all, of the genetic variation between the contemporary human races is attributable to genetic inheritance from either Homo ... > full article

Peking Man -- Peking Man (sometimes now called Beijing Man), also called Sinanthropus pekinensis (currently Homo erectus pekinensis), is an example of Homo erectus. The remains were first discovered in 1923-27 ... > full article

Hominidae -- The hominids are the members of the biological family Hominidae (the great apes), which includes humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. The exact criteria for membership in the Homininae are ... > full article

Timeline of human evolution -- The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the development of humans species and the evolution of human's ancestors. It begins with the time of the origin of life and presents a ... > full article

Recent single-origin hypothesis -- The single-origin hypothesis (or Out-of-Africa model) is one of two accounts of the origin of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens. Because of the scarcity of fossils and the discovery of ... > full article

Homo floresiensis -- Homo floresiensis ("Man of Flores") is a species in the genus Homo, remarkable for its small body, small brain, and survival until relatively recent times. It is thought to have been contemporaneous ... > full article

Human evolution --

Human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of humans as a distinct species. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe ... > full article

Neanderthal -- The Neanderthal or Neandertal was a species of Homo (Homo (sapiens) neanderthalensis) that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago, during the Middle ... > full article

Human migration -- Human migration denotes any movement by humans from one locality to another, often over long distances or in large groups. Humans are known to have extensively migrated throughout history. This ... > full article

Chimpanzee -- Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two extant species in the genus Pan. The better known chimpanzee is Pan troglodytes, the Common Chimpanzee, living primarily in West, ... > full article