A newly published study suggests that Europeans are closely related, finding on a genealogical level that everyone in Europe traces back to nearly the same set of ancestors only a thousand years ago. From Ireland to the Balkans, Europeans are basically one big family, closely related to one another for the past thousand years, according [...]

In a newly published study, researchers analyzed modern human teeth, finding that material loss protects teeth against fatigue failure. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt together with dental technicians have digitally analyzed modern human teeth using an engineering approach, finite element method, to [...]

An international team of researchers used ancient DNA to reconstruct the first high-resolution genetic record of modern European lineages through time, observing both human DNA evolving in ‘real-time’ and the dramatic population changes that have taken place in Europe. Ancient DNA recovered from a series of skeletons in central Germany up to 7500 years old [...]

A new study led by scientists at the University of Leeds shows that short-term ecological change and evolution are intertwined and cannot reasonably be considered separate, finding that populations evolve rapidly in response to environmental change and population management. Environmental change can drive hard-wired evolutionary changes in animal species in a matter of generations. A [...]

A new study offers clues on the origins of life, providing data to support the idea that the 10 amino acids believed to exist on Earth around 4 billion years ago were capable of forming foldable proteins in a high-salt (halophile) environment. Tallahassee, Florida — A structural biologist at the Florida State University College of [...]

Scientists using the Green Bank Telescope have discovered a pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space, suggesting that some basic chemicals needed for life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of [...]

In an effort to shed new light on the evolutionary origin of the head, a newly published study looks at the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis to find out if one of the ends of the sea anemone corresponds to the head of higher animals. A research group at the Sars Center in Bergen has shed [...]

A newly published study from the University of Adelaide shows that calcified dental plaque (dental calculus) found on ancient teeth from 34 early European skeletons indicates that the transition from hunter-gatherer to farming shifted the oral microbial community to a disease-associated configuration. DNA preserved in calcified bacteria on the teeth of ancient human skeletons has [...]

A nearly 400,000 year old human fossil discovered in a Serbian cave is helping scientists shed new light on human evolution. Winnipeg, MB – A fossil fragment of a human lower jaw recovered from a Serbian cave is the oldest human ancestor found in this part of Europe. The newly obtained radiometric date of the [...]

The strongest and biggest bird of prey that ever existed was the Haast’s Eagle (Harpagornis moorei) of New Zealand, and it became extinct around the 1400s soon after the Maori settled the South Island of New Zealand. H. moorei was powerful enough to attack and prey on giant flightless birds, the moa, weighing 10 to [...]

A new study indicates how the first cells might have evolved from rocks, water and hot alkaline fluid rich in hydrogen gas spewing out of deep-sea vents, and how they might have escaped their deep sea lairs. The scientists published their findings in the journal Cell¹. Scientists thought that the origin of life was tied [...]

Human populations have grown exponentially in the past 5,000 years, and new genetic mutations arise in each new generation. Humans have a vast abundance of rare genetic variants in the protein-encoding sections of the genome. A new study tries to clarify when many of these rare variants arose. The scientists published their findings in the [...]