Without this mass extinction, humans and other mammals might never have dominated the planet. The asteroid impact reshaped ...

For thousands of years, humans have selectively bred dogs to fulfill specific roles, ranging from guarding and hunting to herding and companionship. This deliberate shaping of traits has resulted in ...

Saliva is a bodily fluid most of us take for granted despite the significant roles it plays: aiding in digestion, maintaining ...

Scientists have uncovered new evidence suggesting that autism may have it roots in how the human brain has evolved. "Our results suggest that some of the same genetic changes that make the human brain ...

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

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 ...

A digital reconstruction of a million-year-old skull suggests humans may have diverged from our ancient ancestors 400,000 years earlier than thought and in Asia, not Africa, a study found. The ...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be the result of millions of years of evolution. Rapid neuronal evolution in humans is likely ASD’s genetic cause, new research suggests. Though autism can cause ...

A paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution finds that the relatively high rate of autism-spectrum disorders in humans is likely due to how humans evolved in the past. The paper is titled "A general ...

A timeline of genetic changes in millions of years of human evolution shows that variants linked to higher intelligence appeared most rapidly around 500,000 years ago, and were closely followed by ...