Human Evolution
In the early 20th century, a young biochemist named Alexander Oparin set out to connect “the world of the living” to “the world of the dead.”
Only recently have scientists directly witnessed this most pivotal of events in biology.
We are still new at this.
2022 was another busy year in the realm of science, with groundbreaking stories spanning space, materials, medicine, and technology.
Virtually all the statistical methods researchers commonly use assume potential mating partners decide who they will have children with based on a roll of the dice.
About 8% of our genome is made of leftover viruses from our ancestors' infections.
Cooperation was the first technology.
An increase in genetic regulatory elements explains how modern humans evolved bigger brains than other hominins.
We got lucky with our evolutionary history.
The same brain differences that contribute to left-handedness also contribute to psychotic disorders. But there's a bright side.
There were many other species of human on the planet. Svante Pääbo discovered one of them.
The monsoon rains were not always so reliable.
From politics to culture, we blame “tribalism” for humanity’s problems. This explanation is entirely wrong.
Just as human beings diversified so that people in Asia look different from people in Europe, so too did their microbiomes.
Was our distant ancestor a biped or not – i.e., human or not human?
One tiny change might have made a huge difference.
Despite the fact that both species shared a similarly large neocortex, scientists still have many questions about how closely the function of their brains resembled our own.
Many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too.
Thanks to genetics and improving nutrition, denizens of the Western Balkans have surpassed the Dutch in height.
Nietzsche both wished he was as stupid as a cow so he wouldn’t have to contemplate existence, and pitied cows for being so stupid that they couldn’t contemplate existence.
While becoming a monk is an evolutionary dead end for the individual, celibacy reaps benefits for the group as a whole.
More humans are being born with a third arm artery, an example of microevolution happening right before our eyes.
Fossils of Australopithecus in a South African cave are one million years older than previously thought. This challenges the consensus that humans first evolved in East Africa.
Science doesn't fit neatly into ideology.
The chemistry of cooking over an open flame.
Shame is a powerful tool that must be used with care.