September 1st, 2016
Did a fall from a tree kill Lucy?
September 01, 2016A paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas in Austin hypothesizes Lucy died 3.2 million years ago from injuries sustained after falling from a tree. In a paper published in the journal Nature this week, John Kappelman PhD and his team say CT scans of the original fossils indicate fractures consistent with a fall from a great height.
June 15th, 2016
More "Hobbit" news
June 15, 2016The existence of human ancestors on the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago has been pushed back to approximately 700,000 years ago, it was announced in two papers appearing in Nature’s June 9th edition. The formal name of this species uncovered in 2004 is Homo floresiensis.
May 27th, 2016
French Cave yields startling find
May 27, 2016Broken stalagmites forming two circles within a deep cave in France are reported in the journal Nature this week and dated to 176,000 years ago. Stalagmites are limestone objects on the floors of caves, formed as limestone bearing water drips from the cave ceiling.
May 6th, 2016
May 6th, 2016
High energy humans
May 06, 2016A paper in the journal Nature and commentary in Science shows humans are more energetic, burn more calories and have greater stores of fat than our primate cousins. Read commentary in Science
May 6th, 2016
March 10th, 2016
Chew on this
March 10, 2016Human anatomy and behavior appear to have changed significantly around two million years ago with the emergence of a new hominin species, Homo erectus. Brains were larger, legs were longer, the ability to range greater distances expanded. What caused these changes?
December 17th, 2015
Star Wars & Evolution
December 17, 2015The Nature Podcast this week has two items of more than passing interest: a new board game called Evolution and a discussion of the psychological and cultural references in the new Star Wars, The Force Awakens.
Give a listen at the Nature Podcast.
September 20th, 2015
New Home Page
September 20, 2015We have revamped the Home Page for this website, in order to make it more compact and fit mobile device screens better. Same reliable content, same ease of navigation. Check it out!
September 18th, 2015
New or more of the same?
September 18, 2015A few years ago in South Africa spelunkers were exploring a cave near Johannesburg. Working their way through a series of smaller and larger spaces, they found themselves in a small chamber with a scattering of bones on the surface. Thus began an intriguing search to discover the nature and significance of these bones.