56: Are We Still Evolving? & Famous Firs...

It's the Best of Everything! The episode where we look at the topics that YOU thought were our best from the past year, and chat some behind the scenes about them! It's a great place to start and a great time to brush up on things you may have forgotten. Images we Talk About: Etc ... Show More

You may know the polygraph is junk science, but what is the real science of lying and what wild turns did the polygraph take to get to today? And how old is dentistry? If ancient cave men didn't brush why do I have to? Well it turns out for good reason, and some fascinating denta ... Show More

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<p>From a renowned historian comes a &nbsp;groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution - a number &nbsp;one international best seller - that explores the ways in which biology &nbsp;and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it &nbsp;mean ... Show More

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">2021 was a big year in science! Fossil discoveries introduced new relatives to our family tree, new findings added fascinating twists to the human story, and breakthroughs in research methods opened new worlds to explore. In this episode, five s ... Show More

00:46 Complete sequencing of ape genomesResearchers have sequenced the complete genomes of six ape species, helping uncover the evolutionary history of our closest relatives and offering insights into what makes humans human. The genomes of chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean or ... Show More

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today's researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined. Archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes' new book Ki ... Show More

Episode 322 An ancient skull discovered in China may have just rewritten the story of human evolution. It’s widely accepted that the common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Denisovans and Neanderthals came out of Africa. But this skull upends that assumption - potentially showing human ... Show More

Trees are old – they transcend human generations – but are they the oldest living things on Earth? This story began in June 2017 when we explored a question sent in from CrowdScience listener William. Many of you got in touch after the programme with questions of your own. So we’ ... Show More

In this episode:00:46 A potato pangenomeResearchers have created a ‘pangenome’ containing the genomes of multiple potato types, something they believe can help make it easier to breed and sequence new varieties. The potato's complicated genetics has made it difficult to sequence ... Show More

Each of us is endowed with an inheritance--a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights: driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized reli ... Show More

<p>2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We learned something surprising about the evolution of human speech, and new methodologies and showed promising potential to improv ... Show More

<p>Date Set For International Space Station’s Burial At Sea</p> <p>The International Space Station was never going to last forever. And its expiration date had already been moved from 2024 to 2030. But NASA finally released the plan for what happens after the end of United States ... Show More