Every year, almost without thinking about it, we incorporate certain plant species into our Christmas celebrations. The most obvious is the Christmas tree, linked historically in England to Prince…

Scholars say video recordings show that tropical corvids fashion complex tools in the wild. The team attached tiny video 'spy-cameras'  to the crows to observe their natural foraging behavior…

Though we like to think we are more enlightened, advanced or progressive than in the past, it really isn't so. We aren't all that different from 2,000 years ago - kids were kids, parents worried the…

We think of small talk as a way to pass the time or kill an awkward silence but a group of evolutionary psychologists are suggesting that these idle conversations could be a social-bonding tool…

New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in combination with the new crops they encountered, of 'multi…

The speed and character of human dispersals changed significantly around 100,000 years ago, and our dark side deserves a thanksgiving for that; a new paper suggests that betrayals of trust were the…

In civilized war, as oxymoronic as it sounds, hospitals have a cultural bubble around them, neutral territory and off limits.  But in Syria, that bubble has burst dozens of times, according to a…

Human remains dating back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown "fourth strand" of ancient European ancestry.  This new lineage stems from…

It may seem like bees are suddenly all the rage in environmental fundraising campaigns today but they have been important to human culture - for almost as long as modern farming, humans have been…

Want to hyphenate your last name to include your wife's? Is "Three Men and a Baby" your favorite movie? If you are a man, these and other distinguishing characteristics probably mean you have lower…