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Like the teeth themselves, under the right conditions the gunk on your teeth may survive not just thousands but millions of years in the grave. Isn't that good to know.Advanced dental decay and plaque buildup have been detected in Dryopithecus carinthiacus, a primate that lived in Europe 12.5 million years ago, suggesting it doted on high-sugar fruit. Sivapithecus sivalensis, who lived between 9.3 to 8.7 million years ago in Pakistan, was also apparently frugivorous. Analysis of ancient plaque has shed light on the mobility of Neanderthals and other hominins, as implied by dietary changes, and shored up the thesis that...

A blackened, broken leg bone from Earth’s prehistoric past may hold the answer to when early humans diverged from apes and started their own evolutionary path.The fossilized find, first uncovered two decades ago, suggests that early humans regularly walked on two feet some seven million years ago... Since many consider bipedalism the major milestone that put our own lineage on a different evolutionary path than the apes, Sahelanthropus could be the very oldest known hominin—the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all of our immediate ancestors.The species could even be our oldest non-ape ancestor, if its lineage...

In 2010, scientists unearthed an ivory pendant from an abandoned Polish cave. Punctured with patterns reminiscent of moon cycles and mathematics, the artifact's origins eluded archaeologists -- until now. An international team of researchers just declared the relic to be 41,500 years old. That makes it the earliest piece of ornate jewelry ever found in Eurasia, and a wonderful reminder that art is timeless. Images and details of the discovery were published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. But beyond its aesthetic value, this ancient pendant also marks the first proof of post-Neanderthal civilization in the Polish region...

The study, led by scientists at the University of Bath and including collaborators from Bristol, Cambridge and Germany, used fossils and analysed genetic differences between modern snakes to reconstruct snake evolution. The analyses helped to pinpoint the time that modern snakes evolved.Their results show that all living snakes trace back to just a handful of species that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, the same extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.The authors argue that the ability of snakes to shelter underground and go for long periods without food helped them survive the destructive effects of the impact. In...

Ecological reconstruction of Kylinxia. Credit: Huang Diying ========================================================================== The arthropods have been among the most successful animals on Earth since the Cambrian Period, about 520 million years ago. They are the most familiar and ubiquitous, and constitute nearly 80 percent of all animal species today, far more than any other animals. But how did arthropods evolve and what did their ancestors look like? These have been a major conundrum in animal evolution puzzling generations of scientists for more than a century. Now researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) have discovered...

Picturing how our species might appear in the far future often invites wild speculation over stand-out features such as height, brain size, and skin complexion. Yet subtle shifts in our anatomy today demonstrate how unpredictable evolution can be. Take something as mundane as an extra blood vessel in our arms, which going by current trends could be common place within just a few generations. Researchers from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide in Australia have noticed an artery that temporarily runs down the centre of our forearms while we're still in the womb isn't vanishing as often as it...