Modern humans are evolutionary survivors, thriving generation after generation while our ancient relatives died out. Now, new research into our brain chemistry suggests that an enzyme unique to Homo ...

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis ...

Long before genetic testing and genome browsers, a small child was laid to rest in a shallow grave on the slopes of Mount Carmel, in what is now Israel. Today that youngster, known as Skhūl, is at the ...

Denisovans, a mysterious human relative, left behind far more than a handful of fossils—they left genetic fingerprints in modern humans across the globe. Multiple interbreeding events with distinct ...

Momentous encounters -- Neanderthal ancestors -- Neanderthals and their world -- The quiet people -- The ten thousandth grandmother -- Great mobility -- The realm of the Lion Man -- Fat, flints, and ...

Africa has long been known as the cradle of humanity. Fossils, tools and genetics all point there. Yet the deeper story of how the first modern humans lived, moved and mixed has stayed blurry. Too ...

During the Japanese invasion of northern China in 1933, a man was hired to build a bridge across the Songhua river near the city of Harbin. As he was digging, he found a large, ancient cranium ...