From an incredible series of revelations about the ancient humans called Denisovans to surprising discoveries about tool making, this year has given us a clearer picture of how and why humans evolved ...

Revolutionary fossil evidence from Ethiopia is challenging decades of scientific consensus about human origins. New discoveries suggest that the famous Lucy fossil, long considered a direct ancestor ...

What will humans be like generations from now in a world transformed by artificial intelligence (AI)? Plenty of thinkers have applied themselves to questions like this, considering how AI will alter ...

Humans, who are classified among the five great apes, are closest genetically, i.e., DNA similarity, to chimpanzees (98.8%-99%) and bonobos (98.8%). [Blueringmedia ...

In 1758, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus gave humans a scientific name: Homo sapiens, which means "wise human" in Latin. Although Linnaeus grouped humans with other apes, it was English biologist ...

He lived hundreds of thousands of years ago, eking out an existence in what is today central China. Sporting a squat neck and a big brain, he likely wielded tools made of stone and hunted or scavenged ...

"Consciousness," although challenging to define, can be thought of as a first-person awareness of one's surroundings and oneself. You sense the world through your eyes, nose, ears and hands, and track ...

In a recent study published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, researchers examined the differences in circadian biology between the ancestors of modern humans and the archaic hominins such ...

Scientists are revisiting an influential theory that the evolution of big brains made human childbirth risky. By Carl Zimmer It’s a question on every new parent’s exhausted mind: Why are babies born ...

"The Giant Leap," by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf, is an optimistic account of our widening journey into the cosmos.