Most closely related to dugongs, it was discovered in 1741 by biologist Georg Wilhelm Steller, after the expedition to North ...

Humans having sex with a now-extinct subspecies they met in Asia some 60,000 years ago could be the reason you have depression, a new study has claimed. Researchers discovered a gene variant linked to ...

Earth has experienced five mass extinctions caused by natural phenomena, but a new study suggests a sixth event is underway and human activities are to blame. The research, led by the University of ...

'Hobbits' are thought to have become extinct around the time modern humans arrived SCIENTISTS have found new clues about a mysterious ancient human species – indicating they roamed around the earth a ...

The millions of species humans share the world with are valuable in their own right. When one species is lost, it has a ...

The first known hand fossils from an extinct human relative have been unearthed in Kenya, revealing a species with unexpected dexterity and a gorilla-like grip. The hand bones, which were discovered ...

A major milestone has been reached, with experts across Europe, including those at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, sequencing 1,000 species of butterflies and moths. This includes ...

Most people in the world share 2-4% of DNA with Neanderthals while a few inherited genes from Denisovans, a study confirms. Denisovan DNA lives on only in Pacific island dwellers, while Neanderthal ...

There is a new paper in Current Biology, Genetic Structure and Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius. The authors use recovered mitochondrial DNA (passed through the female lineage) ...

There are currently more than 8 billion people in the world, but a new study suggests things could have gone a very different way. Researchers have found that our early human ancestors nearly became ...

Almost 600 plant species have been lost from the wild in the last 250 years, according to a comprehensive study. The number is based on actual extinctions rather than estimates, and is twice that of ...