Excavations of tools at two neighboring Paleolithic sites in southwest France have made the blurred lines between modern humans and Neanderthals more blurry.  Two research teams from the Max…

In the 19th century, following the Enlightenment, the process of secularization seemed to be on a slow but unstoppable roll.  One consequence of this was the development of a view of history,…

How would you measure the 'evolution' - that is to say, changes - in human culture and psychology over the last 200 years?  Psychologist Patricia Greenfield of the University of California, Los…

There is a "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis which suggests that economic conditions present during fetal development that then improve dramatically during a person's childhood lead to poorer…

Hemp (Cannabis sp.) has been a fundamental plant for the development of human societies. Its fibers have long been used for textiles and rope making, which requires prior stem retting. This process…

When most people think 'green' in America, they think of liberal Democrats. It's a carefully crafted image. Conservatives who deny global warming conserve energy just as much as liberals who accept…

Women are waiting longer before getting married - if they get married at all, according to a new analysis. The U.S. marriage rate is now at 31.1 - which in statistical terms means roughly a rate of…

Do looks matter in the work place? There are a lot more unattractive people running departments and entire companies than there are pretty ones - but a new paper by academics says just the opposite.…

Despite the horrors of the Maoist regime, the Communist Party dictatorship in the People's Republic of China continues to exist and retain control, even though tens of millions of people suffered…

Our prehistoric close cousins, the Neandertals, were more similar than science used to think in a variety of ways. And according to a new paper, they had something resembling modern speech and…