Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis ...

Human newborns arrive remarkably underdeveloped. The reason lies in a deep evolutionary trade-off between big brains, bipedalism and the limits of motherhood.

Human evolution has long been tied to growing brain size, and new research suggests prenatal hormones may have played a surprising role. By studying the relative lengths of index and ring fingers — a ...

A composite view of the Earth constructed by NASA from multiple satellite images Editor at Large Human evolution is a story writ slow. It’s been about 3.8 billion years since life on Earth emerged and ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Throughout most of human history, evolution progressed slowly. Small genetic changes took thousands of years to permeate populations. Natural selection was intentional, reactive, and gradual. However, ...