The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater ...

Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just ...

Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe. Using advanced analysis based ...

A new study suggests that the NOVA1 gene may have been a key player in the evolution of human language. By Carl Zimmer Scientists have long struggled to understand how human language evolved. Words ...

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

Many people hold the view that evolution in humans has come to a halt. But while modern medicine and technologies have changed the environment in which evolution operates, many scientists are in ...

Humans are fundamentally technological creatures. We depend on the manufacture and use of tools for our survival to a degree qualitatively greater than any other species. Therefore, an understanding ...

Humans and our ancestors have been exposed to lead for 2 million years, but the toxic metal may have actually helped our ...

A lost chapter in human evolution has been revealed after an analysis of modern DNA found that we come from not one but two ancestral populations—ones that drifted apart and later reconnected long ...

John Gowlett receives funding from PAST Africa and Wenner-Gren Foundation, and his work has previously been supported by The Leverhulme Trust. He is associated with a new series of podcasts on human ...