A mystery that started with the discovery of a pinkie finger bone in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia may finally have been cracked.

Here are 10 major findings about human ancestors and our close ancient relatives that scientists announced in 2025. A handful ...

Researchers have successfully reconstructed the ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from human ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from ...

But some Neanderthal DNA helped modern humans survive and reproduce, and thus it has lingered in our genomes. Nowadays, ...

Learn how ancient DNA from human remains provided the first direct evidence that a common childhood virus has been part of ...

Remnants of ancient viral pandemics in the form of viral DNA sequences embedded in our genomes are still active in healthy people, according to new research my colleagues and I recently published.

If we look across the whole of the mammal branch of the tree of life, we find there are many groups of mammals that have evolved testicles of all different sizes. In almost all these separate cases, ...

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 ...

The Indigenous peoples of the Bolivian highlands are survivors. For thousands of years they have lived at altitudes of more than two miles, where oxygen is about 35 percent lower than at sea level.

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 ...