Category Archives: Human Evolution

The Tree of Life may be more like a bush

New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life', where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers at Uppsala University have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree…

How small genetic change in Yersinia pestis changed human history

While studying Yersinia pestis, the bacteria responsible for epidemics of plague such as the Black Death, Wyndham Lathem, Ph.D., assistant professor in microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, found a single small genetic change that fundamentally influenced the evolution of the deadly pathogen, and thus the course of human history. In a paper…

Humans Trekked Out of Africa Via Egypt, Study Suggests

The major gateway for modern humans out of Africa may have been Egypt, a new genetic analysis suggests. This finding may help scientists reconstruct how humans evolved as they wandered across the globe, the researchers added. Modern humans first arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa south of the Sahara. When and how the modern human…

New Species of Human Ancestor Found in Ethiopia

More than 3 million years ago, when “Lucy” was roaming the savannah of present-day Ethiopia, she may have encountered other two-legged apes not unlike her own species, Australopithecus afarensis—yet still just a wee bit strange. Represented by jawbones from three individuals, a newly described species named Australopithecus deyrimeda adds to the scatter of evidence that…

Two ancient human fossils from Laos reveal early human diversity

An ancient human skull and a jawbone found a few meters away in a cave in northern Laos add to the evidence that early modern humans were physically quite diverse, researchers report in PLOS ONE. The skull, found in 2009 in a cave known as Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains of present-day Laos, and…

Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual…

Earliest Human Species Possibly Found in Ethiopia

An ancient jawbone fragment is the oldest human fossil discovered yet, a bone potentially from a new species that reveals the human family may have arose a half million years earlier than previously thought, researchers say. This find also sheds light on the kind of landscape where humans first originated, scientists added. Although modern humans…

Oldest DNA ever found sheds light on humans’ global trek

Scientists said Wednesday they had unravelled the oldest DNA ever retrieved from a Homo sapiens bone, a feat that sheds light on modern humans' colonisation of the planet. A femur found by chance on the banks of a west Siberian river in 2008 is that of a man who died around 45,000 years ago,…

8,000-year-old mutation key to human life at high altitudes: Study identifies genetic basis for Tibetan adaptation

In an environment where others struggle to survive, Tibetans thrive in the thin air of the Tibetan Plateau, with an average elevation of 14,800 feet. A study led by University of Utah scientists is the first to find a genetic cause for the adaptation -- a single DNA base pair change that dates back…

Marmoset sequence sheds new light on primate biology and evolution

A team of scientists from around the world led by Baylor College of Medicine and Washington University in St. Louis has completed the genome sequence of the common marmoset -- the first sequence of a New World Monkey -- providing new information about the marmoset's unique rapid reproductive system, physiology and growth, shedding new…