A preference for pairings between male Neanderthals and female Homo sapiens may answer the question of why there are "Neanderthal deserts" in human chromosomes.

A new study explains why humans have chins while other primates do not. Researchers found that the chin likely formed as a side effect.

The symbols, discovered on 40,000-year-old artifacts in caves in southwest Germany, may have been a precursor to the first written language

“The chin evolved largely by accident and not through direct selection, but as an evolutionary byproduct resulting from direct selection on other parts of the skull,” University of Buffalo biological anthropologist Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel said in a recent profile.

Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection

Mosquitoes have been biting people for more than a million years and probably much longer. An analysis of 38 modern mosquitoes’ DNA suggests an ancestral mosquito species developed a preference for feeding on early humans between 2.9 and 1.6 million years ago, researchers write February 26 in Scientific Reports.

“Dogs like to watch dogs, just like humans like to watch humans,” said Dr. Freya Mowat, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author of the study, which was published in 2024. “Which is kind of hilarious, if you bring it truly back to basics. It’s essentially soap operas for dogs.”

Orcas are among the ocean’s top predators, yet there is only one well-documented attack on a human in the wild: in 1972, a surfer was bitten – probably because he was mistaken for a seal – but survived. Humans simply do not feature on the orca menu and this can be explained by diet, culture and context.

Interbreeding between Neandertals and ancient anatomically modern humans primarily occurred between male Neandertals and female humans, a new study suggests