Scientists have suspected that modern humans have more genes to digest starch than our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but the amylase locus of the genome is hard to study. Researchers have now developed ...

A new review highlights how human evolution has shaped the presence of pathogenic variations in DNA damage repair (DDR) genes, offering a new perspective on why modern populations face increased ...

Ancient DNA from nearly 16,000 genomes suggests human evolution accelerated after farming, cities, and the Bronze Age transformed Europe.

Robertsonian chromosomes (ROB) are a type of structurally variant chromosome that is created when two chromosomes fuse together to form an unusual bond. Found commonly in nature, these chromosomes are ...

Scientists analyze 22,000 genomes documenting hundreds of genetic changes due to natural selection over the past 10,000 years, including variants linked to celiac disease and multiple sclerosis The ...

Humans, who are classified among the five great apes, are closest genetically, i.e., DNA similarity, to chimpanzees (98.8%-99%) and bonobos (98.8%). [Blueringmedia ...

Looks can be deceiving -- Many trees in the forest : the DNA quest to find our closest ape relative -- The great divorce : how and when did humans and chimpanzees part ways? -- A population crash in ...

Over the past 12,000 years, humans in Europe have dramatically increased their ability to digest carbohydrates, expanding the number of genes they have for enzymes that break down starch from an ...

When humans domesticated grains some 12,000 years ago, natural selection began to favor genomes with extra genes encoding for the enzyme amylase, which converts starch to sugar. These extra genes ...