WHAT’S a man? Or, indeed, a woman? Biologically, the answer might seem obvious. A human being is an individual who has grown from a fertilised egg which contained genes from both father and mother. A growing band of biologists, however, think this definition incomplete. >>Read More

Human babies enter the world utterly dependent on caregivers to tend to their every need. Although newborns of other primate species rely on caregivers, too, human infants are especially helpless because their brains are comparatively underdeveloped. >>Read More

DARWIN isn’t required reading for public health officials, but he should be. One reason that heart disease, diabetes and obesity have reached epidemic levels in the developed world is that our modern way of life is radically different from the hunter-gatherer environments in which our bodies evolved. >>Read More

It starts with what scientists call immune dysregulation. Ideally, your immune system should operate like an enlightened action hero, meting out inflammation precisely, accurately and with deadly force when necessary, but then quickly returning to a Zen-like calm. >>Read More

the first evidence for the evolutionary basis for the obesity epidemic and the increased prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes. >>Read More

The study – by researchers from the University of Turku (Finland), University of Exeter (UK), University of Sheffield (UK) and Stanford University (US) – explains for the first time why the relationship women had with their daughter-in-laws could have played a key role. >>Read More

No animal other than us modern humans—our hunter-gatherer ancestors included—suffers ADHD. But plenty of today’s elementary school children, who spend eight hours a day jammed inside a classroom, do. The American Psychiatric Association considers it a mental disorder. >>Read More