Humans news stories

A new brain imaging study has revealed that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) alters brain connectivity in ways that are notably different from methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDMA) and d-amphetamine…The research was published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Researchers in the UK have now suggested in a report that is yet to be peer reviewed that there’s a very good reason these oddities don’t fit neatly on the tree of life – they belong to a branch all of their own, with no modern equivalent.

Colorado regulators are issuing licenses for providing psychedelic mushrooms and are planning to authorize the state’s first “healing centers,” where the mushrooms can be ingested under supervision, in late spring or early summer.

The mortar, pestle and cutting board in your kitchen are modern versions of manos and metates—ancient cooking implements found in archaeological sites around the world. The latest findings were published last month in the journal American Antiquity.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least five woolly mammoths at a site in Austria. The remains suggest that ancient humans processed the mammoths’ ivory tusks 25,000 years ago.

The discovery of bone implements that are the oldest ever found, by far, casts light on human evolution. It shows that our hominin ancestors were able to think about and make this technology a lot earlier than anyone realised. The research was published in Nature.

In a recent case report published in Frontiers in Immunology, scientists in Canada described how an experimental treatment using a naturally derived substance called ibogaine appeared to improve symptoms and brain health in two individuals with multiple sclerosis.

It may look like just another random boulder, but this old Spanish rock bears engraved lines that could be an astounding 200,000 years old, according to government officials.

One of the smallest human relatives ever found has been unearthed in South Africa…The researchers described their findings in the April issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

A new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggests that intravenous ketamine, when administered in a setting that mirrors psychedelic-assisted therapy, can lead to substantial and sustained reductions in symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A new study by Dr. Margherita Mussi, published in Quaternary International, highlights how naturally occurring basalt spheres may have been used by hominin species as a type of tool for more than 1 million years.

University of Cambridge researchers have now uncovered an estrangement in our family tree, which began with a population separation 1.5 million years ago and a reconciliation just 300,000 years ago. The research was published in Nature Genetics.

Few plants are more celebrated in Egyptian mythology than the blue lotus, a stunning water lily that stars in some of archaeology’s most significant discoveries.

Near the local storefronts lies the site of an excavation that unearthed stone tools from 150,000 years ago—the earliest sign ever of humans inhabiting a tropical forest…”The results represent the oldest yet known clear association between humans and this habitat type,” they wrote in their paper, published in the journal Nature last month after years of research.

The ancestors of all modern humans split off from a mystery population 1.5 million years ago and then reconnected with them 300,000 years ago, a new genetic model suggests. The unknown population contributed 20% of our DNA and may have boosted humans’ brain function.

The red tape of government bureaucracy spans more than 4,000 years, according to new finds from the cradle of the world’s civilisations, Mesopotamia.