Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

For most of human history, green eyes didn’t exist. Understanding why they do now means rethinking what we know about ...

The museum’s groundbreaking Hall of Human Origins centers around the adaptations that set early humans apart Jack Tamisiea What does it mean to be human? This question, deceptively simple and imbued ...

Food processing has been a part of human adaptation since deep in the past. The softening and breaking down of food left its testimony on the human body. For example, the massive teeth of our early ...

The Zlatý kůň skull, found in a cave site in present-day Czechia. Its DNA showed similarities to bones found in a German cave, according to new research. Hidden in many people’s genetic codes is a ...

When Anna Dhody was growing up in Philadelphia, in the nineteen-eighties, her mother used the city’s museums as a kind of babysitter. “She would just drop me off at the Penn Museum and be, like, ...