Getting the fossil record right on human evolution

Uncovering the evolution of any set of living creatures is a complex and highly detailed task for scientists, and theories and approaches that may differ over time may indeed change the fossil record. But paleoanthropologist ...

Evidence of slash-and-burn cultivation during the Mesolithic

As early as 9,500 years ago, people in Europe used slash-and-burn methods to make land usable for agriculture. This is shown by environmental data generated by scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and ...

How the dinosaur extinction changed plant evolution

With the extinction of large, non-flying dinosaurs 66 million years ago, large herbivores were missing on Earth for the subsequent 25 million years. Since plants and herbivorous animals influence each other, the question ...

Soil bacteria evolve with climate change

While evolution is normally thought of as occurring over millions of years, researchers at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that bacteria can evolve in response to climate change in 18 months. In a study ...

Analysis of ancient bones reveals Stone Age diet details

Fish was not on the menu of the hunter-gatherers of southern Europe 27,000 years ago. Surprisingly, people on the Iberian Peninsula in the Late Gravettian period mostly ate plants and land animals such as rabbits, deer and ...

Global warming is faster than evolution

The world is getting warmer, and life has to adapt to new conditions. But if the warming continues, many species may have trouble keeping up.

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