You don't need other people to feel less lonely. You just need things you think are people. Social scientists call this tendency “anthropomorphism.” As a research topic, the phenomenon carries…

Many people pay silly amounts of money to wear a particular logo or a designer brand. A designer outfit doesn't keep you any warmer or dryer than an unbranded one, but functionality is only part of…

Someone named Scylla waterboarded himself and provided a detailed account of what happened. “Old” self-experimentation, you could say, was doctors doing dangerous things to themselves for a short…

The transition from apes to humans may have been partially triggered by the need to stand on two legs, in order to safely carry heavier babies. This theory of species evolution presented by Lia…

The belief among some archaeologists that Europeans introduced alcohol to the Indians of the American Southwest may be faulty. Ancient and modern pot sherds collected by New Mexico state archeologist…

In our first exciting episode of Who’s Smarter: Chimps, Baboons or Bacteria? The Power of Group IQ ( Part I ) we showed how small-brained baboons can outsmart big-brained chimpanzees and how bacteria…

Chimpanzees crave roots and tubers even when food is plentiful above ground, according to a new study that raises questions about the relative importance of meat for brain evolution. The study…

New research is the first to definitively pinpoint when and from where HIV-1 entered the United States and shows that most HIV/AIDS viruses in the U.S. descended from a single common ancestor. The…

A new study explores the role of natural enemies, such as predators and parasites, for mixed mating, a reproductive strategy in which hermaphroditic plants and animals reproduce through both self-…

Questions about human migration from Asia to the Americas have perplexed anthropologists for decades, but as scenarios about the peopling of the New World come and go, the big questions have remained…