Cyanobacteria—ancient microbes that oxygenated Earth and made complex life possible—are still revealing surprises billions of ...

The work demonstrates the power of ancient DNA to illuminate human biology and medicine in addition to history. A massive ...

Learn more about new research that analyzed 16,000 ancient genomes and discovered that natural selection hasn’t slowed down.

For years, the story of recent human evolution looked relatively quiet. Scientists studying ancient human DNA had found only ...

Over the past 10,000 years, evolution in West Eurasia has been selecting for light skin, red hair and resistance to HIV and ...

Ancient DNA reveals how farming accelerated human evolution, driving genetic changes over the past 10,000 years.

When Charles Darwin first proposed how evolution works in 1859, it seemed plausible. Tiny changes stack up over time, eventually leading a species to become something entirely different. Aside from ...

Scientists who analysed nearly 16,000 ancient remains suggest red hair and fair skin is favoured for vitamin D production ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Some researchers hold that evolution hasn’t much altered humans in the past 10,000 years. A new analysis of ancient DNA ...