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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Mathematics: Statistics

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The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, therefore provide fascinating insights. The increase in brain size, and in neuron production during brain development, are considered to be major factors for the increased cognitive abilities that occurred during human evolution. However, while both Neanderthals and modern humans develop brains of similar size, very little is known about whether modern human and Neanderthal brains may have differed in terms of their neuron production during development. Researchers now show that the modern human variant of the protein TKTL1, which differs by only a single amino acid from the Neanderthal variant, increases one type of brain progenitor cells, called basal radial glia, in the modern human brain.

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A vast paleogenetic study reveals insights on migration patterns, the expansion of farming and language development from the Caucasus over western Asia and Southern Europe from the early Copper Age until the late middle ages.

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A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the 'Minoan civilization.'

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Research has established that there are traces of Neandertal DNA in the genome of modern humans. Now an exploratory study that assessed the facial structure of prehistoric skulls is offering new insights, and supports the hypothesis that much of this interbreeding took place in the Near East -- the region ranging from North Africa to Iraq.

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A new study into the multipurpose uses of boomerangs has highlighted the hardwood objects were used to shape the edges of stone tools used by Australian Indigenous communities.  The research demonstrated how boomerangs could function as lithic (or stone) tool retouchers by investigating the use-wear generated on the boomerangs' surfaces during retouching activities. It was found that these use-wear impacts on boomerangs comparable to those observed on Paleolithic bone retouching tools, which date back to more than 200,000 years ago.

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Researchers find that stem cells in the developing brain of modern humans take longer to divide and make fewer errors when distributing their chromosomes to their daughter cells, compared to those of Neanderthals.

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Beaver fur was a symbol of wealth and an important trade item in 10th Century Denmark, according to a new study.

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A groundbreaking Bayesian method and new statistical analyses of genomic data from geckos in the Philippines shows that during the ice ages, the timing of gecko diversification gives strong statistical support for the first time to the Pleistocene aggregate island complex (PAIC) model of diversification, or 'species pump.'

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For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data suggests that the mysterious hominin belonged to an extinct maternal branch of modern humans that might have contributed to the origin of Native Americans.

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New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world's earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and the ancestral populations of the people living there today.

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Scientists reveal an advanced, innovative method that they have developed and used to detect nonvisual traces of fire dating back at least 800,000 years -- one of the earliest known pieces of evidence for the use of fire. The newly developed technique may provide a push toward a more scientific, data-driven type of archaeology, but -- perhaps more importantly -- it could help us better understand the origins of the human story, our most basic traditions and our experimental and innovative nature.

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Fine-tuning the thermal conductivity of amorphous silicon used in technologies such as solar cells and image sensors should become much easier thanks to the computational topology and machine-learning-assisted discovery of the relationship between nano-scale structures and physical properties.

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Researchers say people with developmental dyslexia have specific strengths relating to exploring the unknown that have contributed to the successful adaptation and survival of our species.

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A quantum system with only 51 charged atoms can take on more than two quadrillion different states. Calculating the system's behavior is child's play for a quantum simulator. But verifying the result is almost impossible, even with today's supercomputers. A research team has now shown how these systems can be verified using equations formulated in the 18th century.

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The famous double slit experiment shows that particles can travel on two paths at the same time -- but only by looking at a lot of particles and analysing the results statistically. Now a two-path-interference experiment has been designed that only has to measure one specific particle to prove that it travelled on two paths.

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Mathematicians have developed statistical methods that lay the framework for the crucial first step of determining whether there are any linkages between exposures and health outcomes from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the U.S.

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Researchers have developed a machine learning model that could better measure baseball players' and teams' short- and long-term performance, compared to existing statistical analysis methods for the sport. Drawing on recent advances in natural language processing and computer vision, their approach would completely change, and could enhance, the way the state of a game and a player's impact on the game is measured.

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Professional organizations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields could more effectively collect data on underrepresented groups in their fields, according to a new survey. With more robust information, STEM organizations could better target efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse membership.

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Power functional theory is a new approach that makes it possible to describe precisely the dynamics of many-particle systems over time.

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An artificial intelligence (AI)-based computer algorithm accurately predicted a person's likelihood of suffering heart problems related to clogged arteries based on voice recordings alone.