A new study challenges long-held assumptions about human evolution by repositioning carrion consumption as a fundamental survival strategy rather than a primitive behavior our ancestors abandoned. The research, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, presents scavenging as a consistent and highly efficient practice that shaped our species from the earliest hominins to modern populations.
Ancient humans and their extinct relatives were exposed to toxic lead for nearly two million years, and this environmental stressor may have shaped the evolution of language and brain development in ways that gave modern humans a decisive advantage. A new study published October 15, 2025, in Science Advances reveals that a single genetic mutation
Scientists have long believed that early humans conquered the food chain approximately 2 million years ago in East Africa. New evidence suggests this evolutionary milestone may have occurred much later than previously thought. Fresh analysis of fossilized remains challenges the established narrative about Homo habilis, revealing that these ancient hominins likely fell victim to leopard
In a dusty archive at the University of Zürich, a Swiss teenage victim’s preserved lung dating back to the 1918 Spanish Flu has spilled genetic secrets on one of history’s deadliest diseases. Swiss researchers (spearheaded by paleogeneticist Verena Schünemann at the University of Basel) managed to sequence the full genome of the 1918 flu virus
In Earth’s grand evolutionary tale, some creatures influenced the lives of our ancestors by sharing their environments, rather than contributing to their direct lineage. On top of that, these creatures may have posed immense hazards to our primeval ancestors. Among them is Dinopithecus, the “terrible baboon.” This extinct supersized primate once roamed the landscapes of
A new study from a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has upended centuries of theory as to the origins and evolution of… us. We are not who we thought we were, it seems. Previously the longstanding scientific consensus was that Homo sapiens was one of a family of human and near-human species