Ancient DNA reveals how farming accelerated human evolution, driving genetic changes over the past 10,000 years.

The work demonstrates the power of ancient DNA to illuminate human biology and medicine in addition to history. A massive ...

From the ability to detect the smell of wet soil to the scent of ripe fruit, the human olfactory system has evolved over ...

Learn more about new research that analyzed 16,000 ancient genomes and discovered that natural selection hasn’t slowed down.

Over the past 10,000 years, evolution in West Eurasia has been selecting for light skin, red hair and resistance to HIV and ...

Data from more than 15,000 ancient people reveal natural selection of hundreds of genes linked to immunity, skin tone, ...

Some researchers hold that evolution hasn’t much altered humans in the past 10,000 years. A new analysis of ancient DNA ...

From epic poetry to game shows, from Stone Age axes to spaceflight, humans have the most complex cultures of any species on Earth. Since the time of Darwin, scientists have suspected that this culture ...

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 ...

Something happened around 4,000 years ago in West Eurasia that made red-haired people more common.

Did humans lose their sense of smell? A study on the Orang Asli people reveals that hunter-gatherers maintain ancestral smell genes for foraging, while farmers' olfactory receptors evolved alongside ...

Frequent burn exposure may have driven human genetic adaptations that improve healing but worsen severe injury outcomes.