The next time you feel like taking the path of least resistance, consider the fate of humankind's ancestral predecessor, Homo erectus: According to the authors of a new study published in PloS One, laziness may have precipitated the early humans' extinction, leaving them unable -- and unwilling -- to adapt to changing environments... The team found that H. erectus tended to pursue "least-effort strategies" when crafting tools and collecting resources, even sticking to one generic tool for most activities. In a statement, lead author Ceri Shipton, an archaeologist at ANU, notes that the primitive peoples "really don't seem to have...