Some inherited variants still help humans fend off infections, adapt to climate and regulate sleep, while others nudge up the risk of allergies, depression or severe Covid. The story of Neanderthal ...

Deep in your muscles, an enzyme called AMPD1 helps turn chemical fuel into usable energy. When it does not work well, muscles tire faster.

A girl goes nose-to-nose with a Neanderthal statue in Germany. Ancient DNA research is increasingly revealing the genetic links between modern humans and our extinct ancestors, including Neanderthals ...

Neanderthals and modern humans interbred long ago, but evolution has purged many of our caveman relative's genes from modern human genomes, a new study finds. Neanderthals were the closest extinct ...

Explore the surprising Neanderthal DNA distribution in modern humans and how Neanderthal genes help adapt to cooler climates. You've heard that Neanderthal DNA lives on in the genes of many modern ...

Did modern humans erase Neanderthals, or did our close cousins fade away for reasons that had little to do with us? A pair of major papers in Science and Nature on Dec. 12, 2024, sharpen that question ...

More than a decade after the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced, scientists are still working to understand how human-specific DNA changes shaped our evolution. A new study by the Max Planck ...

Researchers have identified gene-regulatory variants that might have contributed to Neanderthals’ beefy jaws — offering a window on how the human face developed 1. This ‘non-coding’ sequence controls ...

New research suggests Neanderthals didn't face a sudden extinction but were gradually absorbed into the growing human population. A mathematical model indicates repeated, small-scale human migrations ...