
Love
Large brains may have led to the evolution of amour
Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor for features at Scientific American, where she has focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for nearly 30 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home to the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, as well as to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and a “Big Day” race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Wong is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Bluesky @katewong.bsky.social

Love
Large brains may have led to the evolution of amour

Origins: The Start of Everything
Where do rainbows come from? What about flying cars, love and LSD?

Facial Expressions
Our unique expressiveness may have a three-million-year-old pedigree

Legs, Feet and Toes
The essential parts for walking on land evolved in water

Weak Link: Fossil Darwinius Has Its 15 Minutes
Skepticism about a fossil cast as a missing link in human ancestry

Reviews: August 2009
Celestial Views, Bigfoot Pursuits and Scientific Twitterers

The Mysterious Downfall of the Neandertals
Paleoanthropologists know more about Neandertals than any other extinct human. But their demise remains a mystery, one that gets curiouser and curiouser

Homo Sapiens Fingered in Neandertal Cold Case
A forensic analysis suggests that the weapon wielded in a stabbing attack came from modern humans

Crawling May Be Unnecessary for Normal Child Development
In some tribes, babies skip the crawl

Moon Walking, Becoming Human and Amazing Animals
The books highlighted below commemorate the 40th anniversary this month of the first manned landing on the moon

News Scan Briefs: Hand Transplant Recipients Switch Handedness
Also: ending nerve damage from needles, "caveman" connection to humans, electromagnetic chatter, and laser beams that curve

Living Alike

Pssst: Gossip hurts--but friends can protect you from the worst of it

How similar was Neandertal behavior to that of modern humans?

Neandertal cannibalism? Maybe not

Super Serpent: Bus-Size Snake Ruled Rainforest 2 Million Years Ago (Thankfully)
The 13-meter-long Titanoboa could easily outstretch today's anaconda

New Fossil Shows How the Turtle Got Its Shell
Odontochelys semitestacea, the oldest turtle fossil yet, has a fully formed lower shell, or plastron, but lacks a fully formed upper shell

Decoding the Mammoth
Scientists sequence half the woolly mammoth's genome

The Human Pedigree: A Timeline of Hominid Evolution
Some 180 years after unearthing the first human fossil, paleontologists have amassed a formidable record of our forebears

Updates: Whatever Happened to Natural Blood-Vessel Dilators?
Also: updates on cloning mice and extinction by disease

Updates: Whatever Happened to Midsize Black Holes?
Also: updates on HIV's origins, Neandertal fishing and transgenic guidelines

Scientists Sequence Half the Woolly Mammoth's Genome
Study could be a step toward resurrecting a long-extinct animal

Hobbit Hullabaloo
New findings challenge the idea of a mini human species on Flores

Did the Flores Hobbit Have a Root Canal?
Dental work claim challenges antiquity of hobbit skeleton