How a new method of inferring ancient population size revealed a severe bottleneck in the human population which almost wiped out the chance for humanity as we know it today.
Evolution
Aug 31, 2023
3
336
Sometimes to know what the matter is, you have to find it first.
General Physics
Jan 31, 2023
2
700
Humans and chimpanzees differ in only one percent of their DNA. Human accelerated regions (HARs) are parts of the genome with an unexpected amount of these differences. HARs were stable in mammals for millennia but quickly ...
Evolution
Jan 13, 2023
8
387
A series of experiments led by researchers at Stanford Medicine that included fish hookups, CRISPR and lake hopping has confirmed a long-standing, yet unproven, assumption about natural evolution. It also debunks a talking ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 8, 2022
1
250
Lizards and snakes are a key component of most terrestrial ecosystems on earth today. Along with the charismatic tuatara of New Zealand (a "living fossil" represented by a single living species), squamates (all lizards and ...
Evolution
Aug 25, 2021
0
1554
An enduring question in geology is when Earth's tectonic plates began pushing and pulling in a process that helped the planet evolve and shaped its continents into the ones that exist today. Some researchers theorize it happened ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 22, 2020
4
3963
The early solar system was a chaotic place, with evidence indicating that Mars was likely struck by planetesimals, small protoplanets up to 1,200 miles in diameter, early in its history. Southwest Research Institute scientists ...
Space Exploration
Feb 12, 2020
5
411
How much time and effort do you spend chewing? Although you probably enjoy a few leisurely meals every day, chances are that you spend very little time and muscular effort chewing your food. That kind of easy eating is very ...
Archaeology
Mar 9, 2016
20
957
These days, cooking dinner requires no more thought than turning a knob on a stovetop, but for early humans the notion that - simply by applying heat or fire - foods could be transformed into something both tastier and easier ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 3, 2015
6
1095
Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in Neandertals.
Archaeology
Jul 7, 2014
4
0
