8+ hour ago  (307+ words) By making people write with their elbows, scientists found that repetition really matters People tend to be better at writing with either their left or the right hand, shown in this composite image of a person writing “8”. This specialization doesn’t…...

1+ week, 10+ hour ago  (348+ words) The miniature hominids don't appear to have slain island elephant kin nor used fire “Hobbits” (Homo floresiensis), shown in this reconstruction of the head of the now-extinct hominid, lived on what is now the island of Flores in Indonesia. New…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago  (79+ words) Plague DNA in ancient graves near Siberia's Lake Baikal suggests the disease threatened people long before farming and crowded settlements....

5+ mon, 3+ week ago  (422+ words) The cave art was made more than 67,000 years ago Archaeologists think this hand stencil (highlighted in the center of this 3-D rendering of the art in order to better see the barely there image) was made on the walls of…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago  (414+ words) The victims may have been targeted for massacre in a culture clash 3,000 years ago Archaeologists found the ancient Gomolava burial pit in northern Serbia more than 50 years ago, and a new genetic study shows it held mostly women and children....

6+ mon, 3+ hour ago  (324+ words) The designs of flowers on Halafian pottery made almost 8,000 years ago (some shown) show geometric sequences in the number of petals. This is a human-written story voiced by AI. Got feedback? Take our survey. (See our AI policy here.) Plantlike…...

7+ mon, 1+ week ago  (138+ words) The well-preserved nasal passages of a Neandertal skeleton are as narrow as our own The exceptionally well-preserved nasal cavity of this over 130,000 year old Neandertal skull wasn't specially adapted for cold and is similar to that of Homo sapiens, a…...

7+ mon, 1+ week ago  (314+ words) Their DNA is more varied than modern humans, including gene tweaks enhancing sun protection Ancient southern Africans, represented here by a skull dating to between about 82,000 and 170,000 years ago, evolved a unique set of gene variants over the past several…...

8+ mon, 2+ week ago  (385+ words) Changes in gene activity reshaped our ancestors’ hips, laying the foundation for bipedalism Skeletons of a human, gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan and gibbon stand next to one another in this anatomical sketch. Scientists have uncovered two genetic shifts in humans that…...

8+ mon, 2+ week ago  (285+ words) Genetic and stone tool similarities link a fossil bone with Neandertals 3,000 kilometers away Excavations decades ago at Crimea’s Starosele rock-shelter, shown here, yielded a fossil bone that has now divulged a genetic glimpse of long-distance Neandertal treks into Asia. A…...