Sexual selection in humans: beards, chins and maps
Many researchers believe that certain human traits act as a signpost, advertising the fact that the individual has good genes, or is healthy, or just generally great. As such, finding […]
Tag Archives: science
Why did language evolve?
Language is important to us modern humans so asking why it evolved seems like a silly question. After all, surely we can think of numerous benefits of language that drove […]
How can isotopes tell us about the prehistoric climate?
Yesterday Phyrangula linked to my article on the problems of trying to squeeze the ice age into a young earth creationist chronology. This earned me 10 times more page views […]
Australopithecus sediba: human by accident?
Australopithecus sediba, everyone’s second favourite Australopith after Lucy, was back in the news last week as more research on this fascinating specie was published. First discovered in South Africa in 2008, […]
The Neanderthal with a chin: a human hybrid?
Humans may have been evolving for millions of years, but some of our traits only developed recently. I’m always fascinated by these modern traits, they’re often the last thing you […]
Earlier Neanderthal Extinction?
Today’s question comes from Cadell, a fellow Advanced Ape. He claims to be Canadian, but I’ve never heard him apologise for anything so I’ve always been skeptical about his heritage. […]
Assassin’s Creed in your genes
I’m a big fan of the Assassin’s Creed games, they’re top notch murder simulators. The premise behind them is that the memories of our ancestors are encoded into our DNA which can […]
When did humans leave Africa?
Fossil evidence indicates that modern humans evolved in Africa around 195,000 years ago (McDougall et al., 2005). Genetic data confirms this, showing that all living people share an African ancestor […]
Fitting the ice age into creationism – Misguided Mondays
Over the past week or so several creationist sites have written about how the ice age fits into the Biblical chronology. The most prominent of these being Answers in Genesis, […]
Monkeys and mirrors: are monkeys self-aware?
Being able to recognise yourself in the mirror is a sign you’re self-aware, which is a key step on the road towards theory of mind and other complex thought processes. It has long been thought that monkeys cannot recognise themselves in the mirror, or can they?
