Human evolution is not a straight line but a complex branching tree shared with other great apes. This overview explains the ...

Evidence is mounting that the evolution of our species is more convoluted than we imagined — more like a braided stream than a branching tree. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the four billion years of our ...

One of the biggest mysteries in human evolution has just been solved. In 2010, a groundbreaking genetic analysis revealed that east Asia was once home to a previously unknown group of enigmatic ...

How far back in evolutionary history does kissing go? Through phylogenetic analysis, an international team of scientists found that kissing was likely present in the ancestor of all apes – which lived ...

A 146,000-year-old skull recovered near Harbin, China, by scientists decades ago has now been found to belong to the Denisovans, an extinct relation to modern humans who lived in Siberia and East Asia ...

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture. Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work ...

It is fair to say that the family tree of ancient humans is not written in stone. Just take the case of the Denisovans, the enigmatic ancient humans who were, until recently, known only from a few ...

An updated evolutionary model shows that living systems evolve in a split-and-hit-the-gas dynamic, where new lineages appear in sudden bursts rather than during a long marathon of gradual changes.