The Human Dynasty

In Serbia, a jaw holding three teeth is thought to be 250,000 years old, and the earliest evidence of humans in the area. “We were looking for Neanderthals, but this is much better,” said Mirjana Roksandic of Winnipeg University.
Several painted wooden coffins and statues of their owners have been discovered near Saqqara, Egypt. “These coffins [...]

(Pyrrhic House) The pattern recognition theory of humor is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humor occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it. It also identifies implications of pattern recognition in childhood cognitive development, other species and artificial intelligence, and posits humor as a major driving force in the evolution of humankind’s unique perceptual and intellectual abilities.

Measuring and testing the teeth of living primates could provide a window into the behavior of the earliest human ancestors, based on their fossilized remains. New research takes us one step closer to understanding the relationship between canine teeth, body size and the lives of primates.

The largest ever study of bird genetics redraws the avian evolutionary tree, challenges current classifications, alters our understanding of avian evolution, and provides a resource for future studies. Early Bird, centered at the Field Museum, examined DNA from all major living bird groups. Scientists built and analyzed a dataset of more than 32 kilobases of nuclear DNA sequences from 19 locations on the DNA of each of 169 species — equivalent to a small genome project.

Fossils yield insight into early tetrapod evolution

(Uppsala University) New exquisitely preserved fossils from Latvia cast light on a key event in our own evolutionary history, when our ancestors left the water and ventured onto land. Swedish researchers Per Ahlberg and Henning Blom from Uppsala University have reconstructed parts of the animal and explain the transformation in the new issue of Nature.

An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe’s last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population — rather than communities on the verge of extinction.

Scientists have used Iceland’s genealogical database to trace the ancestors of patients suffering from hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy. Analysis shows that the deadly mutation in the cystatin C gene, L68Q, derives from a common ancestor born roughly 18 generations ago, around 1550AD.

(University College London) An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe’s last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population — rather than communities on the verge of extinction.

Tools thought to have belonged to Neanderthals have been dug up at an archaeological site called Beedings in West Sussex.