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Human Evolution
Red dwarfs aren’t uninhabitable; we’re just impatient
Red dwarfs are the Universe's most common star type. Their flaring now makes potentially Earth-like worlds uninhabitable, but just you wait.
The next revolution in biology isn’t reading life’s code — it’s writing it
It's time to write the human genome, argues microbiologist Andrew Hessel.
Ask Ethan: How many generations of stars came before the Sun?
Our Sun only arose after 9.2 billion years of cosmic history: with many stars living and dying first. How many prior generations were there?
What do distant observers see when they look at Earth?
From here on Earth, looking farther away in space means looking farther back in time. So what are distant Earth-watchers seeing right now?
David Kipping on how the search for alien life is gaining credibility
Big Think spoke with astronomer David Kipping about technosignatures, "extragalactic SETI," and being a popular science communicator in the YouTube age.
Why do only humans weep? The evolutionary puzzle of crying.
In this excerpt from "When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...," Steven Pinker examines how crying may have evolved as part of a suite of emotional expressions aimed at strengthening social bonds.
Science’s answer to the ultimate question: Where do we come from?
Questions about our origins, biologically, chemically, and cosmically, are the most profound ones we can ask. Here are today's best answers.
How taming fire made us human
In this excerpt from "The Story of CO2," Peter Brennan explains how changes in the Earth's ecosystem led to fire, which in turn led our ancestors to become the "fire apes."
How a dime-sized bone rewrote the story of human evolution
In “The Secret History of Denisovans,” Silvana Condemi and François Savatier trace the story of our mysterious hominin ancestor.
The migraine mystery: Why evolution never cured the pain in our heads
In "The Headache," Tom Zeller Jr. explores one of the human brain's most enduring, and painful, enigmas.
Evolution isn’t a straight line: Modern humans come from 2 ancient lineages
After more than a million years of separation, two branches of humanity reunited around 300,000 years ago, suggests new research.