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 ...

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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.