Human

Excavations found that the brain of what seems to be a human male contained dark glass formed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The effect can't be explained by lava temperatures alone, but rather a different event from the cataclysm.

We know what they look like, and even sound like, but there’s one question you might not have pondered: what do ancient Egyptian mummies smell like? Whether you wanted to know or not, scientists have now given us an answer.

A new discovery in Kenya shows that ancient human relatives crossed paths – literally. Paleontologists have discovered the first known example of fossil footprints left by two different species of ancient hominins on the same day.

The hugely ambitious project of mapping the estimated 37.2 trillion cells of the human body is close to reaching a historic milestone – the first draft of the 'atlas.' We got a glimpse at what's in store from this unprecedented biological guidebook.

Most of us do it, in one form or another, but how and when humans began to kiss is still hotly debated among researchers. Now, a new evolutionary theory has been put forward, which says the origins of the kiss may date back millions of years.

At the time of writing, there were an estimated 8,123,518,311 living humans on Earth – roughly the most there has ever been. But as fertility and birth rates continue to freefall, the numerical peak of humanity is quickly approaching.

Well-preserved bones of a two-tonne glyptodont revealed cut marks indicative of stone tools, suggesting that human hunter-gatherers had settled in the Americas around 21,000 years ago – some 5,000 years before people were thought to have arrived.

Harvard and Google Research have mapped thousands of cells and millions of synapses in a poppy seed-sized sample of tissue. The result is a set of truly stunning images and marks a major step towards understanding of the biggest challenges in science.

A genetically edited pig kidney has been successfully transplanted into a living patient for the first time. Reports indicate the man is doing well a few weeks on, raising hopes for a wider pool of donated organs in future.

In what may put some of us to shame, apes instantly recognize family and friends that they haven’t seen in more than two decades, which is the longest ‘social memory’ in a non-human animal ever documented.

A 2021 study caused a stir by claiming that a set of fossilized human footprints were 20,000 years old – much earlier earlier than humans were thought to have set foot in North America. Now two extra dating methods have seemingly confirmed the age.

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence of artificial structures made of wood, dating back almost half a million years – predating the appearance of our own species and suggesting our relatives settled down much earlier than we thought.