Humans and our ancestors have been exposed to lead for 2 million years, but the toxic metal may have actually helped our ...

Fossilized human teeth spanning two million years of evolution had shockingly high contents of lead, which may have been the ...

Language is one of the few faculties that still seems to be uniquely human. Other animals, like chimpanzees and songbirds, have developed elaborate communication systems, but none appears to convey ...

A new study suggests that the NOVA1 gene may have been a key player in the evolution of human language. By Carl Zimmer Scientists have long struggled to understand how human language evolved. Words ...

Scientists found that ancient lead exposure shaped early human evolution. The toxin may have played a surprising role in the development of modern cognition and language. An international team of ...

Long before factories, mines, and cars filled the air with pollution, our distant ancestors were already living with a silent ...

Humans' unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago, according to a survey of genomic evidence. As such, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago. It is a deep ...

Lead exposure may have spelled evolutionary success for humans—and extinction for our ancient cousins—but other scientists ...

Charles Darwin suggested in 1871 that spoken language originated with instinctive sounds, like squeals or yells, which humans then learned to imitate and modify for specific purposes. Now, scientists ...