Remarkable new fossils from Swartkrans Cave reveal that a prehistoric relative of humans was also extremely small and ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — The three-dimensional shape of a protein can be used to resolve deep, ancient evolutionary relationships in the tree of life, according to a new study. It is the first time ...

Nell Greenfieldboyce is a NPR science correspondent. With reporting focused on general science, NASA, and the intersection between technology and society, Greenfieldboyce has been on the science ...

The sudden withdrawal of almost half of global funding for nutrition suddenly will have dire consequences for decades.

While exploring his home country of Ethiopia, Alemseged and his team discovered “Selam,” a remarkably complete fossilized skeleton of a 3.3 million-year old Australopithecus afarensis child. Selam ...

Both Lucy and Selam—the fossil remains of a 3-year-old girl described by the Academy’s Zeray Alemseged in 2006—belong to the species Australopithecus afarensis, which lived 3 to 4 million years ago.