Humans, who are classified among the five great apes, are closest genetically, i.e., DNA similarity, to chimpanzees (98.8%-99%) and bonobos (98.8%). [Blueringmedia ...

Researchers have used a new human reference genome, which includes many duplicated and repeat sequences left out of the original human genome draft, to identify genes that make the human brain ...

Longer thumbs mean bigger brains, scientists have found—revealing how human hands and minds evolved together. Researchers studied 94 different primate species, including fossils and living animals, to ...

What unique processes conspire to create a healthy, functional human brain? How can we be so genetically similar to, say, chimpanzees, and yet be light-years more sophisticated cognitively and ...

The placenta and the hormones it produces may have played a crucial role in the evolution of the human brain, while also leading to the behavioral traits that have made human societies able to thrive ...

Scientists have uncovered new evidence suggesting that autism may have it roots in how the human brain has evolved. "Our results suggest that some of the same genetic changes that make the human brain ...

Modern humans, Neanderthals, and other recent relatives on our human family tree evolved bigger brains much more rapidly than earlier species, a new study of human brain evolution has found. The study ...

What makes the human brain different from that of other primates has long been a question. A new study suggests that the answer may be in a surprising twist of evolutionary fate: one of the brain’s ...

It suggests that manual dexterity and brain evolution are connected across the entire primate lineage, from lemurs to humans. Notably, the correlation held even when human data were excluded, ...

For decades, large stretches of human DNA were dismissed as "junk" and considered to serve no real purpose. In a new study published in Cell Genomics, researchers at Lund University in Sweden show ...

An international study changes the view that exposure to the toxic metal lead is largely a post-industrial phenomenon. The research reveals that our human ancestors were periodically exposed to lead ...

A new Yale study provides a fuller picture of the genetic changes that shaped the evolution of the human brain, and how the process differed from the evolution of chimpanzees. For the study, published ...