Humans news stories

Researchers at Dartmouth College in the U.S. recently carried out a study aimed at further investigating the biological mechanisms that could underpin psilocybin’s antidepressant effects. Their findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that another serotonin receptor, which does not induce hallucinations when activated, could be responsible for some of the drug’s beneficial effects.

Researchers from several European institutions…have demonstrated that the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (between approximately 26,000 and 19,000 years ago) were part of large-scale social networks capable of connecting vast territories in western Europe. The study was published in the journal Science Advances.

An ancient DNA analysis of a 5,500-year-old human skeleton reveals that an ancestor of the bacterium that causes syphilis was present in the Americas at least 3,000 years earlier than previously thought…In a study published Thursday (Jan. 22) in the journal Science, researchers isolated the oldest T. pallidum genome yet, from the skeleton of a middle-aged hunter-gatherer who was buried in Colombia 5,500 years ago.

A fossil jaw of a distant human relative was discovered much farther north than previously thought possible, revealing new information about diversity in human evolution. The study was published Wednesday (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature.

When Neanderthals in Italy were crossing the Alps, it’s likely they took refuge in high-altitude bear caves. A new study of stone tools in Caverna Generosa, a cave sitting 1,450 meters up in the mountains, found that these travelers also brought a toolkit with them. The research was published in the Journal of Quaternary Science. 

This discovery could fill a major gap in scientists’ understanding of the journey the ancestors of Indigenous Australians took before reaching the continent at least 60,000 years ago. “It is very likely that the people who made these paintings in Sulawesi were part of the broader population that would later spread through the region and ultimately reach Australia”. The study was published Wednesday (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature.

In a study published in the journal Iraq, Dr. Troels Arbøll analyzed medical prescriptions from ancient Mesopotamia to understand and re-evaluate the role sanctuaries played in the healing process.

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use…“I was naturally amazed by her extraordinary intelligence and thought how much we could learn from animals: patience, calmness, contentment, and gentleness.”

The return of humans to the British Isles after the end of the last ice sheet, which covered much of the northern hemisphere, happened around 15,200 years ago—nearly 500 years earlier than previous estimates. The work is published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

A recent study conducted in Norway suggests that MDMA-assisted therapy may provide lasting relief for individuals suffering from major depressive disorder. The study was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

An international research team has announced the most complete fossil yet of Homo habilis (aka ‘the handy man’) – one of the earliest known members of our genus. The study was published in The Anatomical Record.

Scientists found a massive underwater wall off the coast of France that might help explain the origin of the legend of Ys. Their findings were published in Hal Open Science, on the 9th Dec 2025, in a paper titled: Submerged Stone Structures in the Far West of Europe During the Mesolithic/Neolithic Transition (Sein Island, Brittany, France).

Image by Évariste-Vital Luminais (Wiki Commons)

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Scientists have revealed the most complete skeleton yet of our 2 million-year-old ancestor Homo habilis. The complete analysis of the remains has been described in a paper published Tuesday (Jan. 13) in the journal The Anatomical Record.

Early, ancestral members of the human lineage may have left Africa earlier than widely thought, a new study of fossil teeth suggests. The new study was published Dec. 3 in the journal PLOS One.

Swiss author Erich von Däniken passed away at the age of 90. Erich von Daniken’s family announced that the author died on January 10, 2026, in a hospital in Interlaken, Switzerland.

“Could it be that God was an extra-terrestrial? What do we mean when we say that heaven is in the clouds? From Jesus Christ to Elvis Presley, every culture tells us of high-flying bird men who zoom around the world creating magnificent works of art and choosing willing followers to share in the eternal glory from beyond the stars. Can all these related phenomena merely be dismissed as coincidence?”

Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods

The hunting of large whales goes back much further in time than previously thought. New research…reveals that Indigenous communities in southern Brazil were hunting large cetaceans 5,000 years ago, around a thousand years before the earliest documented evidence from Arctic and North Pacific societies. The research was published in Nature Communications.