To Shakespeare’s Hamlet we humans are “the paragon of animals”. But recent advances in genetics are suggesting that humans are far from being evolution’s greatest achievement. For example, humans have ...

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 ...

How did humans become human? Understanding when, where and in what environmental conditions our early ancestors lived is central to solving the puzzle of human evolution. Unfortunately, pinning down a ...

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, finds that the relatively high rate of Autism-spectrum disorders in humans is likely due to how humans evolved in ...

Microbes supporting the production of more metabolic energy could be key to the evolution of large brains First study to show gut microbes from different animal species shape variations in their ...

Saini Samim receives funding from the Melbourne Research Schorship provided by the University of Melbourne. She has also received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Turkana Basin ...

Laurence D. Hurst is the author of The Evolution of Imperfection, published by Princeton University Press. This was enabled by funding from The Humboldt Foundation and the European Research Council.