From nucleic acids to proteins and sugar chains, all life is made up of polymers, large molecules made up of sequences of small units called monomers. However, how these macromolecules first appeared on the surface of Earth is still controversial. It is generally assumed that, right before life started, our planet was covered in very […]
How does the Zika virus cause microcephaly? Why do some people develop schizophrenia or mental disease while others don’t? Is our sexual orientation hardwired in our genes? As seemingly unrelated as these questions might sound, they can all be addressed using the same scientific tool: twin siblings. Nancy Segal (Boston, 1951) has been chasing twins […]
We’ve known for decades there was a time when mammoths, saber-tooth cats, and other big mammals walked the Earth like it was no big deal. We also know that at some point of the Ice Age, a mass extinction made them disappear, leaving their fossils and their descendants as the only proof of their existence […]
Pigmentations are among the clearest examples of phenotypic variation in many species. Hair, skin and eye colors are highly heritable and visible traits in humans. Blond hair is most commonly found in Northern and Central Europeans and their descendants. Nowadays it can be found spread in many parts of the world but it is particularly […]
Music is usually considered as a universal art form. It is found in virtually all human cultures and its use is associated with many different human tasks, from the most sacred to the most profane. Its elusive nature has haunted thinkers for millennia. Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras, among others, devoted much of their time to […]
Authors: M. Hervella & C. de la Rúa do research and teach at the Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology Department of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). After the dispersal Out of Africa of modern humans, around 50–70 thousand calendar years before present (ky cal BP for short) or earlier based on fossil […]
A 1 million-year-old fire lit by human ancestors was discovered in 2012 in the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. The soil of the cave yielded several dozen stone tools, microscopic plant ashes and burned bone bits. It is supposed that a member of the Homo genus, perhaps Homo erectus , made a fire that produced […]
The nose is one of the strangest structures of human anatomy. It is much more different from our closest relatives than other parts of the body, it is sexually dimorphic, being on average larger in males than in females, and it is different among different hominin species and among different ethnic groups. Size and shape […]
Anthropology • Biology • Evolution • Genetics
Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) were a species –some say a subspecies although most authors consider there is enough evidence to consider them as a separate species– of human closely related to us. They were firstly discovered in a cave in the Neander Valley («Tal» in German), about 12 km east of Düsseldorf. There is […]
Biology • Biotechnology • Ethics • Evolution • Genetics
Ever since the 1993 film based on Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park was released, the thought of reviving extinct species using molecular biology techniques has been on the forefront of the collective imaginary. The idea seemed pretty simple: reading the genetic code of fossilized animals would provide the instruction manual to bring them back to […]