Humans news stories

A study of an ancient bone from Spain with a strange pattern of notches hints that it was used by early Homo sapiens in Europe as a punch board for making holes in leather

What do medieval monks and volcanic eruptions have in common? According to a team of researchers led by the University of Geneva, quite a bit because chronicles from the 12th and 13th century are helping volcanologists to precisely date ancient eruptions based on descriptions of lunar eclipses. See the research here.

Image from: .scopex (Wiki Commons)

New research into ancient populations that resided on the Tibetan Plateau has found that dairy pastoralism was being practiced far earlier than previously thought and may have been key to long-term settlement of the region’s extreme environment.

The eye is so complex that even Charles Darwin was at a loss to explain how it could have arisen. Now, it turns out that the evolution of the vertebrate eye got an unexpected boost—from bacteria, which contributed a key gene involved in the retina’s response to light.

A move to allow Australian psychiatrists to treat depression with psilocybin may herald a new era

Lawmakers want the DEA to clarify that the seriously ill can access psychedelics under “Right to Try” laws.

An innovative method developed by an Italian team is emerging that will revolutionize the field of archaeology and radiocarbon dating and protect our cultural heritage. The researchers have used it with surprising results on archaeological bones, making the ‘invisible’ visible.

About 1,300 years ago a scribe in Palestine took a book of the Gospels inscribed with a Syriac text and erased it. See the research here.

People were getting high on hallucinogenic drugs in Spain around 3,000 years ago, according to new research.

See the oldest human ever found in Egypt in a stunning new facial approximation.

One of the most well-studied chemical processes in nature, photosynthesis, may not work quite how we thought it did, scientists have accidentally discovered. See the study here.

The first physical evidence of an ancient practice previously known only from iconographic and literary sources—12 to 18 right hands buried beneath pits in an ancient Egyptian palace. See the study here.

Until now, the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens eating land snails dated to roughly 49,000 years ago in Africa and 36,000 years ago in Europe. But tens of thousands of years earlier, people at a southern African rock shelter roasted these slimy, chewy — and nutritious — creepers that can grow as big as an adult’s hand, researchers report in the April 15 Quaternary Science Reviews.

A study of U.S. Special Operations Forces Veterans participating in an ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment in Mexico showed that participants treated with these psychedelic substances showed a significant reduction in alcohol misuse 1 month after the start of the treatment.

When deprived of water or snipped with scissors, plants emit a flurry of staccato “screams” that are too high-frequency for humans to hear, a study suggests. When lowered into a range that human ears can detect, these stress-induced pops sound like someone furiously tap dancing across a field of bubble wrap.