Bonobos and chimpanzees are closely related but bonobos lack of aggression, playfulness, and strong familial ties make them very different to their chimp cousins. Now, researchers say that these behavioral differences might be because bonobos retain elevated thyroid hormone concentrations well into adulthood, whereas in humans and chimps, levels decline after puberty. The researchers, from […]
In a fascinating new study, human life expectancy – which is rarely included in analyses of human impacts on the environment – emerged as the key predictor of invasive species and extinctions. The study, published inEcology and Society, examined a combination of 15 social and ecological variables – from tourism and per capita gross domestic […]
A growing human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species with extinction within 40 years, new research from Ohio State University indicates. The findings are detailed in the journal Human Ecology. The scientists behind the study have determined that the average growing nation should expect […]
Archaeologists at the University of York say challenging terrain could have been the driving force behind our earliest ancestors leaving the trees and becoming upright bipeds. Writing in the journal Antiquity, the researchers suggest that our upright gait may have its origins in the rugged landscape of East and South Africa which was shaped during […]
The vast majority of new, emerging or re-emerging human diseases are caused by pathogens from animals, according to the World Health Organization. But a widely accepted theory of risk reduction for these pathogens is likely wrong, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. The dilution effect theorizes […]
The subtle but relentless pressures of human evolution could explain the rise of disorders such as autism, autoimmune diseases, and reproductive cancers, say scientists who believe that evolutionary perspectives should be part of medical school curricula. The researchers, from Yale University, the University of Michigan, Harvard University and the Boston University School of Medicine, speculate […]
English boffins have developed a mathematical model of the mating game to help explain why courtship is often protracted. The study, by researchers from University College London (UCL), the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), shows that extended courtship enables a male to signal his suitability to a […]
According to current theory, modern humans left Africa around 60,000 years ago in a migration that spread the human population around the world. But researchers from Harvard Medical School now believe that men and women weren’t equal partners in that exodus. By tracing variations in the X chromosome and in the non-sex chromosomes, the researchers […]
Habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff are combining to turn Earth’s oceans into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease, says Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. He contends that human activities are cumulatively driving the health […]
Building on earlier work that found evidence of human viruses in deceased chimpanzees, a new study by Virginia Tech researchers has confirmed that chimps in Tanzania’s Mahale Mountains are becoming sick from a variant of a human paramyxovirus. While the findings, reported in the American Journal of Primatology, demonstrate that the respiratory disease can spread […]
