Scientists found that one tiny DNA change in the NOVA1 gene helped modern humans resist lead exposure that harmed Neanderthals.

Several hominid species were consistently exposed to lead for almost two million years, which may have given modern humans a survival advantage.

Far up in the Ethiopian highlands, the resounding strike of stone against stone was probably a familiar one two million years ago. Ancient hominids chipped away to create simple tools: hammerstones ...

Long before factories, mines, and cars filled the air with pollution, our distant ancestors were already living with a silent toxin: lead. A groundbreaking study reveals that hominids — from early ...

Lead is often thought of as a modern toxin, but a new study has found that it's been haunting us and our ancestors for almost 2 million years. Stranger still, exposure could actually have given humans ...

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

Almost 2 million years ago, a young ancient human died beside a spring near a lake in what is now Tanzania, in eastern Africa ...

Shizuka, a seven-year-old female Sumatran orangutan, seen in a cage before being transferred to Indonesia at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. CREDIT: SOPA Images/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — ...

What does it mean to be human? For a long time, the answer seemed clear. Our species, Homo sapiens - with our complex thoughts and deep emotions - were the only true humans to ever walk the Earth.

We Homo sapiens possess surprisingly few functional genes that distinguish us from extinct human lineages such as ...

Dazzling new scientific techniques are allowing anthropologists to track the movements and menus of extinct hominids through the seasons and years as they ate their way across the African landscape, ...

Lead exposure has been thought to be a uniquely modern phenomenon. Exposure to lead by ancient humans could have given modern humans a survival advantage over other species – more specifically, their ...