Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater ...

Wild chimpanzees alter the meaning of single calls when embedding them into diverse call combinations, mirroring linguistic operations in human language. Human language, however, allows an infinite ...

On Valentine’s Day in 2018, a team of scientists walked across a flat expanse in the badlands of northeastern Ethiopia, scanning the ground for fossils. An eagle-eyed field assistant, Omar Abdulla, ...

If you have spent time with an infant, you might recognize the scene: A child is wailing, inconsolable, and you, the parent, have to go to the bathroom. Or eat. Or attend to a pot that’s boiling over.