Category: Human evolution
Whatta headline! Early man was “total mean girl”
| November 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
William von Hippel, an evolutionary psychologist promoting a book, explains how we got here: Social connection and its middle-school messiness assured our survival — more than harnessing fire or developing opposable thumbs. Von Hippel writes that a series of “social leaps” — or movements forward in the way we connect with our fellow man — […]
Is human evolution happening faster than ever?
| November 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Killer quote: “Realising evolution doesn’t only happen by natural selection makes it clear the process isn’t likely to ever stop.” So says an evolutionary geneticist: We measure the speed of gene evolution by comparing human DNA with that of other species, which also allows us to determine which genes are fast-evolving in humans alone. One […]
Study: Neanderthals did not live more violently than other ancient peoples
| November 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From a study of over 200 skulls: Males suffered the bulk of harmful head knocks, whether they were Neandertals or ancient humans, the scientists report online November 14 in Nature. “Our results suggest that Neandertal lifestyles were not more dangerous than those of early modern Europeans,” Harvati says. Bruce Bower, “Skull damage suggests Neandertals led no […]
Neanderthals walked normally, upright, say researchers
| November 12, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
The skeleton was of a 32-year-old man: Neanderthals walked upright, had spines straighter than those of modern man, would have been strong and sturdy, and breathed deeply from their bell-, not barrel-shaped ribcages, according to a recently published article written by an international team of scientists. Busting open the myth of the arm-dragging, hunched-over caveman, […]
Three new studies “shake up” study of human migrants to North America
| November 12, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
We used to think the picture was pretty simple but not any more: By sequencing and analyzing 15 ancient genomes found throughout the Americas—six of which were older than 10,000 years—these researchers determined that, around 8,000 years ago, the ancestors of Native Americans were still on the move, migrating away from Mesoamerica (what is today […]
Historian: Human evolution theorists were attempting to be moral teachers
| November 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Post World War II, scientists studying origins, sensed a moral mission to tell the story in order to encourage us to be better people. The close-knit hunter-gatherer clans that represented all humanity co-operated for survival and were chock full of moral lessons for us all. But was it true?: Readers and reviewers lumped Morris, Ardrey […]
Do we really live longer because of “longevity genes”? Researchers cast doubt
| November 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Genetics, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
It’s now suggested that people likely to live long tend to find each other (assortative mating). How else to explain this?Researchers found that siblings’ and first cousins’ lifespans were well correlated but also: But spouses’ lifespans were correlated, too. That could be easily explained by spouses sharing the same household and lifestyle: eating the same […]
Can culture explain why brains have become bigger?
| November 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
From ScienceDaily: Humans have extraordinarily large brains, which have tripled in size in the last few million years. Other animals also experienced a significant, though smaller, increase in brain size. These increases are puzzling, because brain tissue is energetically expensive: that is, a smaller brain is easier to maintain in terms of calories. Building on […]
World’s oldest known painting, 40,000 years old, found in Borneo jungle
| November 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
A thick-bodied animal in red ocher: Researchers have found older man-made images, but these were abstract patterns, such as crisscrossing lines. The switch to figurative art represented an important shift in how people thought about the world around them — and possibly themselves. Carl Zimmer, “In Cave in Borneo Jungle, Scientists Find Oldest Figurative Painting […]
Pleistocene human remains show many deformities
| November 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Apparently, the golden age in the distant past of good health due to clean, fresh outdoor living was a myth after all: Anthropologist Erik Trinkaus from Washington University in St Louis, US, compiled examination records for two Late Pleistocene infants, six children, four juveniles, six adolescents, 30 prime age adults, and eight older adults, from […]
No one evolved faster than the Neanderthal
| November 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, language |
Look how smart he got in the last few decades: This from a discussion of whether Neanderthals had language: Based on these results, most researchers agree Neanderthals were capable of emitting and hearing complex vocalizations. However, they disagree over the implications. While some consider the findings indicative of speech-based language in Neanderthals, others propose these […]
Two Neanderthal children from 250 kya showed lead exposure, and much else
| November 6, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Based on an analysis of their teeth: Two 250,000-year-old teeth from two Neanderthal children revealed that both of them were exposed to lead twice during their short lifetimes, the first known case of lead exposure in Neanderthals… “Teeth record environmental variation based on the climate, even where you’re growing up,” said Tanya Smith, lead author […]
Stone tools found in Saudi Arabia from 300,000 years ago
| October 31, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
At the time, Saudi Arabia was a grassy plain with many lakes: Archaeologist Patrick Roberts of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and his colleagues recently discovered a handful of stone tools in a sandy layer of soil beneath the dry traces of a shallow Pleistocene lake at Ti’s al Ghadah, […]
New find extends back our knowledge of earliest identified North Americans
| October 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Artifacts have been found from a group that may have contributed to the later and better known Clovis culture: “We have discovered two previously unknown spearpoint styles that predate Clovis,” says study coauthor and archaeologist Michael Waters of Texas A&M University in College Station. Finding these artifacts in sediment showing a clear progression from stemmed […]
Fruit fly study casts doubt on the “carbs are bad” neutral evolution theory
| October 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Fruit fly research challenges neutral theory of molecular evolution and suggests one day we may be prescribed diets according to our genes. Fruit fly larvae with a noted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation showed a pronounced increase in development when eating high carbohydrate diet of banana, but stagnated on a high protein diet of […]
“Incredibly surprising”: New structure in human cells discovered
| October 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: The cells in a tissue are surrounded by a net-like structure called the extracellular matrix. To attach itself to the matrix the cells have receptor molecules on their surfaces, which control the assembly of large protein complexes inside them. These so-called adhesion complexes connect the outside to the cell interior and also signal […]
Long held evolution theory countered: Birth canals differ worldwide
| October 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Evolution theory held that women’s pelvises should have been shaped by the obstetrical dilemma (birthing babies with big heads safely) and thus should tend to be uniform. But The shape of a mother’s birth canal is a tug-of-war between two opposing evolutionary forces: It needs to be wide enough to allow our big-brained babies to […]
Researchers: Starchy food may have aided human brain development
| October 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
From ScienceDaily: A perennial topic in human evolution is, what gave humans an advantage? A logical response to the question is: Name just about anything and someone will make a case out of it. A little while ago, it was meat. This time, it’s starch. People with more copies of the AMY1 gene — and corresponding […]
Move over Mother Theresa! Wild chimps sometimes share food with others
| October 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Evolution, Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism |
From ScienceDaily: Sharing meat after hunting and exchanging other valued food items is considered key in the evolution of cooperation in human societies. One prominent idea is that humans share valuable foods to gain future favors, such that those we chose to share with are more likely to cooperate with us in the future. Despite […]
Science as tourist studies among the hunter-gatherers
| October 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
From report on a study of the rules developed by East African hunter-gatherers (the Hadza) around sharing food: Some camps share food more than others, but Hadza circulate among all camps rather than clustering in the most cooperative ones. Hadza individuals adjust their willingness to share food to the accepted standards, or social norms, of […]
