An individual from an enigmatic hominid species strode across a field of wet, volcanic ash in what is now East Africa around 3.66 million years ago, leaving behind a handful…
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Ancient giant orangutans evolved smaller bodies surprisingly slowly
Giant orangutans that once dwelled in mainland Southeast Asian forests belonged to a single species that gradually shrank in size over nearly 2 million years, a study suggests. Today, orangutans…
DNA from mysterious Asian mummies reveals their surprising ancestry
Mystery mummies from Central Asia have a surprising ancestry. These people, who displayed facial characteristics suggesting a European heritage, belonged to a local population with ancient Asian roots, a new…
‘The Dawn of Everything’ rewrites 40,000 years of human history
The Dawn of EverythingDavid Graeber and David WengrowFarrar, Straus and Giroux, $35 Concerns abound about what’s gone wrong in modern societies. Many scholars explain growing gaps between the haves and…
A child’s partial skull adds to the mystery of how Homo naledi treated the dead
A child’s partial skull found in a remote section of a South African cave system has fueled suspicion that an ancient hominid known as Homo naledi deliberately disposed of its…
Ancient human visitors complicate the Falkland Islands wolf’s origin story
The enigmatic, now-extinct Falkland Islands wolf had human visitors on the remote archipelago up to 1,070 years ago. The find suggests that Indigenous people could have originally brought the foxlike…
Lasers reveal construction inspired by ancient Mexican pyramids in Maya ruins
At Teotihuacan, near Mexico City, three giant pyramids rise above the ancient city’s main street, the Avenue of the Dead. The smallest of these is the Temple of the Feathered…
Fungi may be crucial to storing carbon in soil as the Earth warms
When it comes to storing carbon in the ground, fungi may be key. Soils are a massive reservoir of carbon, holding about three times as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere.…
A sailor’s story captures the impact of rising serious fungal infections
Tyson Bottenus once captained an 80-foot schooner called the Aquidneck. He sailed tourists off the coast of Newport, R.I., discussing the area’s history and sites. In January 2018, he had…
By taking on poliovirus, Marguerite Vogt transformed the study of all viruses
When nobody else wanted the job, Marguerite Vogt stepped in. Working from early morning until late at night in a small, isolated basement laboratory at the California Institute of Technology,…
