In a new book, Growing Up Human, a bioarchaeologist chronicles some of the most surprising evolutionary adaptations of babies, parents, and grandparents. This article is excerpted and adapted…
Two anthropologists explain how analyses of oxygen isotopes from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution amid environmental changes. This article was origina…
The debate over naming the virus known as monkeypox says a lot about the close—but fraught—relationships between humans and our fellow primates. ✽ The name of the latest…
Chimps exhibit unique behaviors in different communities, such as these who clasp hands while grooming one another. P. Gagneux/GMERC This article was originally published at The Conversat…
[no-caption] Vincent van Gogh/Wikimedia Commons This article was originally published at Knowable Magazine and has been republished under Creative Commons. Lee Gettler is hard to get on t…
United States Olympic athlete Kara Winger competes in the women’s javelin throw in 2019. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images With the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, Kara Winger is trainin…
Except for humans, every great ape is endangered—many at great risk of going extinct. There are fewer than 300,000 chimpanzees living in the wild. USAID Africa Bureau/Wikimedia Commons…
One illustrator’s approach to conveying the multidimensional lives of apes with particular focus on their anatomy. *This essay includes scientific illustrations as well as descriptions of the observin…
Savanna Pumé (hunter-gatherers in Venezuela) children, shown here building a house, learn to cooperate from a young age. Russell D. Greaves Something curious happened in human population …
Macaques sit near Florida’s Silver River. Rachel Simmons/Flickr Steve Johnson never thought he’d have to worry about death threats, not in his line of work. Johnson is a…
[no-caption] Sascha Wenninger/Flickr The first time I saw wild orangutans, in Borneo back in 2017, it was a mother-infant pair that caught my eye. The mother, Bibi, had…
A mother gorilla cradles her dead baby at a zoo in Germany in 2008. Rolf Wilms/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images As the SARS-CoV-2 virus rocks the world, a haunting aspect of…
People stand 6 feet apart while waiting in line for a store in Denver, Colorado. Michael Ciaglo/Stringer/Getty Images Around the world, millions of people are now practicing social…
Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation By Juno Salazar Parreñas, The Ohio State University 288pp. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. § Colin Hoag spoke with…
[no-caption] Sara López Gilabert/SAPIENS It is early morning on a wide plain in Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. With a small Dixie cup and a wooden tongue…
We all have texts that are formative in our academic, professional, spiritual, personal, mental, and philosophical lives. There are a few books that I can point to as…
This scanning electron micrograph (SEM) shows healthy spermatozoa emerging from a cavity within the testis. Innerspace Imaging/Getty Images This article was originally published at Aeon. …
[no-caption] Science Photo Library/Getty Images This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. We all know that parrots can tal…
[no-caption] Sara López Gilabert/SAPIENS Suzana Herculano-Houzel spent most of 2003 perfecting a macabre recipe—a formula for brain soup. Sometimes she froze the jiggly tissue in liquid n…
Do we gain insight by comparing President Trump to a chimpanzee? Can we learn something useful about gender-based violence among humans by studying other primates? Can observing chimpanzees…
Bonobos congregate around a male bonobo holding an African breadfruit to get a share of the meal. Barbara Fruth/LuiKotale Bonobo Project People are weird—at least compared to other…
The movies that Natalie Laudicina makes use the same software that helped create some of the biggest blockbuster hits of the last decade, but her movies won’t be…
Chimpanzees use alarm calls to inform each other of danger. Ronald Woan/Flickr A chimpanzee is strolling along a trail through the lush Budongo Forest in Uganda when he…
Our cells have a built-in genetic clock, tracking time—but how accurately? Mauro Hiroshi Cannas/Flickr This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished u…