Longer thumbs mean bigger brains, scientists have found—revealing how human hands and minds evolved together. Researchers studied 94 different primate species, including fossils and living animals, to ...

A new study reveals how transposable elements (TEs) expanded gene regulation during brain evolution, shaping modern neural development networks.

Humans, who are classified among the five great apes, are closest genetically, i.e., DNA similarity, to chimpanzees (98.8%-99%) and bonobos (98.8%). [Blueringmedia ...

What unique processes conspire to create a healthy, functional human brain? How can we be so genetically similar to, say, chimpanzees, and yet be light-years more sophisticated cognitively and ...

Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the long-extinct pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were the pioneers, taking to the skies more than ...

In a new study published in Science, a Belgian research team explores how genetic switches controlling gene activity define brain cell types across species. They trained deep learning models on human, ...

Human evolution has long been tied to growing brain size, and new research suggests prenatal hormones may have played a surprising role. By studying the relative lengths of index and ring fingers — a ...

Modern humans, Neanderthals, and other recent relatives on our human family tree evolved bigger brains much more rapidly than earlier species, a new study of human brain evolution has found. The study ...

New research has revealed that birds, reptiles, and mammals have developed complex brain circuits independently, despite sharing a common ancestor. These findings challenge the traditional view of ...

A new Yale study provides a fuller picture of the genetic changes that shaped the evolution of the human brain, and how the process differed from the evolution of chimpanzees. For the study, published ...