Editor's note: All opinions, columns and letters reflect the views of the individual writer and not necessarily those of the IDS or its staffers. We’ve all seen this poster in our middle school ...

Human evolution is not a straight line but a complex branching tree shared with other great apes. This overview explains the distinction between hominids and hominins and traces the evolutionary ...

A living fossil fish just proved we've misunderstood a major chapter in the story of evolution. For decades, the coelacanth — an ancient fish species that first appeared 400 million years ago — was ...

Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

In 1758, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus gave humans a scientific name: Homo sapiens, which means "wise human" in Latin. Although Linnaeus grouped humans with other apes, it was English biologist ...

Human evolution’s biggest mystery, which emerged 15 years ago from a 60,000-year-old pinkie finger bone, finally started to unravel in 2025. Analysis of DNA extracted from the fossil electrified the ...