Original Australians numbered 1,000-3,000, study finds

Australia was first settled by between 1,000 and 3,000 humans around 50,000 years ago, but the population crashed during the Ice Age before recovering to a peak of some 1.2 million people around five centuries ago, a study ...

London rail workers find likely plague burial pit (Update)

Workers digging a new railway line in London have uncovered what they believe is a burial ground containing victims of the Black Death—a plague that wiped out as much as half of London's inhabitants when it swept the city ...

Why are there redheads? Birds might hold the clues

Red coloration—historically seen as costly in vertebrates—historically seen as costly in vertebrates—might represent some physiological benefit after all, according to research published in the journal Physiological ...

European Romani exodus began 1,500 years ago, DNA evidence shows

Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, and religion, Europe's widespread Romani population shares a common, if complex, past. It all began in northwestern India about 1,500 years ago, according to a study ...

Fly genomes show natural selection and return to Africa

(Phys.org)—When ancestral humans walked out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago, Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies came along with them. Now the fruit flies, widely used for genetics research, are returning to Africa ...

Dating encounters between modern humans and Neandertals

To discover why Neandertals are most closely related to people outside Africa, Harvard and Max Planck Institute scientists have estimated the date when Neandertals and modern Europeans last shared ancestors. The research, ...

EU looks to downgrade wolf protection status

The European Commission said Wednesday it wants to change the protection status of wolves—allowing them to be hunted—based on new data suggesting the animals pose a rising threat to livestock.

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