News 22 Apr 2024By Ann Gibbons Forced to eat bat feces, chimps could spread deadly viruses to humans Tobacco farming is driving apes to seek unusual food source, brimming with pathogens
News Feature 4 Apr 2024By Ann Gibbons Was Lucy the mother of us all? Fifty years after discovery, famed skeleton has rivals Iconic 3.2-million-year-old fossil is now part of an extended family of human ancestors
News 18 Dec 2023By Ann Gibbons Chimps remember the faces of old friends and family for decades Recognition ability rivals all other animals, including humans
News 6 Sep 2023By Ann Gibbons Humans aren’t the only fat primate Contrary to some theories, our species didn’t evolve to gain weight more easily than other apes and monkeys, study finds
News 5 Jun 2023By Ann Gibbons Was a small-brained human relative the world’s first gravedigger—and artist? Anthropologists praise Homo naledi fossils but doubt spectacular claims of intentional burial and art
News 3 May 2023By Ann Gibbons Who wore this ancient deer pendant? DNA reveals a Stone Age woman with surprising origins Pioneering technique allows scientists to read genetic traces of an artifact’s last user
News 26 Apr 2023By Ann Gibbons Modern lager arose when a beer and an ale met in a Munich brewhouse Two yeast strains mixed in a brewing cellar 400 years ago
News 9 Feb 2023By Ann Gibbons Did more than one ancient human relative use early stone tools? Scientists find oldest Oldowan butchery tools—long seen as a hallmark of our own genus—with Paranthropus fossils
News 8 Dec 2022By Ann Gibbons Mysterious ancient humans may have given people of Papua New Guinea an immune advantage The genetic legacy of Denisovans may be shaping the modern immune system of southwest Pacific populations
News 19 Oct 2022By Ann Gibbons How the Black Death changed our immune systems Medieval DNA suggests immune gene helped protect against deadly pathogen, but may cause autoimmune problems today
News 24 Aug 2022By Ann Gibbons Human ancestors were walking upright 7 million years ago, ancient limb bone suggests Sahelanthropus may have been the first bipedal member of human lineage, but experts say more evidence is needed
News 15 Jun 2022By Ann Gibbons 800-year-old graves pinpoint where the Black Death began Ancient DNA from cemeteries in today’s Kyrgyzstan reveal earliest known victims of 14th century plague
News 6 Jun 2022By Ann Gibbons How the wild jungle fowl became the chicken New studies propose surprisingly late date, and link to rice growing, for chicken domestication
News 22 Mar 2022By Ann Gibbons The Maya—and the maize that sustained them—had surprising southern roots, ancient DNA suggests Migrants from the south may have helped spread early farming in Central America
News Feature 17 Feb 2022By Ann Gibbons This scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories—and why The work of evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer shows why humans are the fattest, highest energy apes
News 22 Dec 2021By Ann Gibbons Early migration from France may have brought Celtic languages to Britain Ancient DNA reveals 3000-year-old influx across English Channel
Sifter 5 Nov 2021By Ann Gibbons First child’s skull of Homo naledi unveiled Remains may suggest possible burial
News 27 Oct 2021By Ann Gibbons Western China’s mysterious mummies were local descendants of ice age ancestors Find suggests Tarim Basin mummies were not strangers from a strange land
News 20 Oct 2021By Ann Gibbons Ancient DNA reveals the long-sought homeland of modern horses Bronze Age riders trotted out their new mounts in the western Eurasian steppe
News 22 Sep 2021By Ann Gibbons World’s oldest known beads found in Morocco Perforated shells may have signaled identity, attracted mates
25 Apr 2024By Elizabeth Pennisi Where do elbows and knees come from? Biologists track them back to our boneless, sharklike ancestors