WOW, new finds from the Ice Age! Two absolutely stunning Ice Age figurines from the Swabian Jura were found, dating back around 40,000 years. The tiny carvings, about the size of a thumbnail, depict two birds, rendered with remarkable attention to detail. Snow grouse, buzzard, or...🧵1/2
A 1.43-million-year-old trackway in Kenya preserves 21 Paranthropus footprints from eight individuals. Their sizes indicate bodies up to 6 feet tall, and the mostly adult male group hints at complex social structure.
Fossil footprints reveal body size and group dynamics of 1.4-million-year-old human relative
Ancient footprints preserved along the shores of Kenya's Lake Turkana are reshaping scientists' understanding of one of humanity's extinct relatives.
phys.org
Differences in human and great ape laughter reveal clues to the origin of speech theconversation.com/differences-...
Differences in human and great ape laughter reveal clues to the origin of speech
A new study of great ape laughter also gives clues about how humans’ ancient ancestors started speaking.
theconversation.com
Study Reveals Ongoing Natural Selection in Modern Humans neurosciencenews.com/ongoing-natu...
Study Reveals Ongoing Natural Selection in Modern Humans - Neuroscience News
A new study uses age-stratified allele frequencies to map ongoing natural selection and rare pathogenic variants.
neurosciencenews.com
More reassuring touch before feeding led bonobos and chimpanzees to spend more time co-feeding alongside others, suggesting touch may help manage social tension during competition.
New study into humans' closest ape relatives suggests physical touch can promote social harmony
Physical touch may be an important evolutionary tool to help manage social tension and keep the peace. That is according to a new study led by Durham University in the UK, analyzing behaviors of our closest ape relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees.
phys.org
The “Hobbits” Mysteriously Disappeared 50,000 Years Ago – Scientists Have Revealed What Happened to Their Home scitechdaily.com/the-hobbits-...
The “Hobbits” Mysteriously Disappeared 50,000 Years Ago – Scientists Have Revealed What Happened to Their Home
A long drought on Flores may have helped drive Homo floresiensis and its prey away from their cave refuge.
scitechdaily.com
New research explores whether rock art acts as a time capsule for its creators' DNA. By analyzing pigment samples from 24 panels across Spain and Portugal, researchers found human DNA traces persisting on cave walls for thousands of years. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A warmer ocean has wide-ranging impacts. ⬆️ ocean temperatures, keep the atmosphere warm longer, provide ➕energy to storms & ⬆️ evaporation, thus enhancing the potential for extreme precipitation and flooding, sea level ⬆️ & ice melt, & stresses marine ecosystems. climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-m...
Copernicus Marine and Copernicus Climate Change: Daily global sea surface temperatures break records for the time of year
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) both confirmed that the global sea surface temperatures (SST) have now exceeded the record levels for the time of ...
climate.copernicus.eu
This has got to be the weirdest human evolution story I've ever covered. I'm still baffled -- yes, baffled -- by these results. 🏺🧪
'A weird result from an already weird hominin': Archaeologists discover all Homo naledi skeletons found in South African cave are female
A cutting-edge analysis of the teeth from Homo naledi skeletons in a South African cave system found no males within the group. Experts are unsure what to make of the finding.
livescience.com
Nice summary of our recent paper on the brain of Homo naledi www.iflscience.com/homo-naledis...
Did This Small-Brained Hominin Have The Neural Wiring For Burying Its Dead?
A reconstruction of the hominin's skull reveals an enlarged region linked to language and tool use, though what that means for its alleged funerary practices remains an open question.
iflscience.com
The findings suggested that inbreeding – often cited as a key culprit of Neanderthal decline – was not much of a problem in this population. By all accounts, the population had a healthy, well-connected gene pool.
Ancient DNA Of The Last Northwestern Neanderthals Shoots Down A Leading Theory Of Why They Went Extinct
The story of Neanderthals is a lot thornier than previously thought.
iflscience.com
For much of the past century, fossils from East Africa have shaped our understanding of ape evolution. Now, a jawbone found in the Egyptian desert adds a new dimension to that story. Image Credit: Professor Hesham Sallam thedebrief.org/a-single-jaw... #fossils #paleontology
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...
Common plastic chemical linked to lifelong anxiety in new study
Exposure to a common plastic chemical before and shortly after birth may have lasting effects on behavior. Researchers found that male rats exposed early in life to DEHP—a plasticizer used in products...
sciencedaily.com
spacedaily.com/d-a-43000-ye...
A 43,000-year-old stone roughly the size of a potato, found in a rock shelter in central Spain, was confirmed in 2025 to bear a single red-ochre fingerprint in its centre — placed deliberately by a Ne...
The story of the stone begins, like many archaeological stories, with a moment of mild astonishment at the bottom of an excavation trench. The team from Complutense University of Madrid had been worki...
spacedaily.com
Rare Neanderthal baby remains reveal growth patterns similar to modern humans and signs of metabolic disease archaeologymag.com/2026/06/nean...
Rare Neanderthal baby remains reveal growth patterns similar to modern humans and signs of metabolic disease | Archaeology News Online Magazine
Rare Neanderthal baby remains from Germany reveal growth patterns similar to modern humans and signs of early childhood stress.
archaeologymag.com
Frozen Greenland middens preserved detectable human- and animal-associated bacterial signals for centuries. For now, thawing sites appear to pose little public-health risk because those microbes do not seem to spread far.
Frozen Greenland middens preserve 4,500 years of farms, seal hunts and toilets
Greenland has a long and checkered history of human settlement: several Paleo-Inuit cultures since approximately 2,500 BCE, descendants of Vikings between the 10th and 15th centuries, and early modern Danes since 1721.
phys.org
Baby sandhill cranes called colts take approximately 65 to 75 days from hatching to grow their feathers and make their first flight in their awkward stage they practice preflight training by energetically flapping their wee wings, and doing practice hops.
Chimpanzees react negatively to unfairness, especially when close partners are nearby phys.org/news/2026-06...
Chimpanzees react negatively to unfairness, especially when close partners are nearby
Primates, including humans, are among the social animals living on Earth. Their survival relies heavily on cooperation with others, alliances, the sharing of resources and other social interactions.
phys.org
Four days of extreme rain in Indonesia killed 7% of world’s rarest great apes, study finds www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Four days of extreme rain in Indonesia killed 7% of world’s rarest great apes, study finds
Critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan population falls after heavy rain and landslides, fuelled by climate crisis, in North Sumatra
theguardian.com
A rare and well-preserved Iron Age discovery at Loch Borralie in Sutherland, Scotland, has revealed evidence of complex postmortem skeletal modification, showing that an adult female's brain was extracted and her long bones were precisely sharpened into tool-like points.
Evidence of Iron Age brain removal and bone tools found in Scotland
Scientists have uncovered evidence of an Iron Age funerary tradition involving the deliberate removal of human brains and the fashioning of long bones into sharp tools.
york.ac.uk
www.futura-sciences.com/en/what-scie...
What scientists have uncovered about Neanderthals rewrites everything we thought we knew - Futura-Sciences
The research team, led by Alessandro Urciuoli of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, examined the semicircular canals of fossil specimens spanning nearly 400,000 years. These fluid-filled structur...
futura-sciences.com