14 February 2023
In the first study to look at the evolution of hair types, researchers found tightly coiled hair provides a trade-off of shielding the head from the sun while minimising unwanted insulating
11 August 2022
Unlike people, 43 species of monkeys and apes are known to have so-called vocal membranes, which may prevent them from having precise voice control
17 November 2021
Dig down, and evolution by natural selection is just about spontaneous, sustained accumulation of complexity – if life elsewhere exists, it’s likely to develop in the same way
11 November 2021
Why did ancient humans begin to domesticate animals? Plus, a new hominin species has been named – but it may not stick
27 January 2021
For millennia, our species advanced in lockstep with the Denisovans and it is hard to work out from archaeological finds why they disappeared from the planet while we now dominate it
11 November 2020
Hugs, handshakes and air kisses serve the same crucial purposes as animal greetings like sniffing, eye poking and buttock grabbing
23 September 2020
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is one of the greatest accomplishments of human intellect and it is continuing to bring further insights under its wing
28 April 2020
Being intelligent has allowed our species to conquer the world. Mark Maslin explains why evolution favoured an unusually brainy ape.
1 April 2020
Forget the simple out-of-Africa idea of how humans evolved. A huge array of fossils and genome studies has completely rewritten the story of how we came into being.
11 December 2019
A common misconception is that evolution naturally selects for biological complexity, eventually creating advanced organisms like us. That couldn't be further from the truth
