Stories by Kate Wong

Fieldwork: Tiny Bones to Pick

Paleontologists brave wildfires, parasites and scorching temperatures in search of ancient mammal fossils

Lucy Film Hinges on Brain Capacity Myth

On July 25, French film writer/director Luc Besson's action thriller Lucy opens in theaters nationwide. The premise is that the title character, played by Scarlett Johansson, is exposed to a drug that unlocks her mind, giving her superhuman powers of cognition...

Archaeologists Edge Closer to Solving the Mysteries of Teotihuacán

After decades of investigation, fresh clues are emerging from Mexico’s City of Gods

Neandertal Lineage Began in a "Game of Thrones" World

In a small chamber deep in the Atapuerca mountains in northern Spain lies one of the most extraordinary paleontological discoveries of all time: a massive assemblage of fossils belonging to an extinct member of the human family...

Predictive Map Leads Fossil Hunters to Pay Dirt

New technique helps paleontologists narrow their search for ancient bones

Oldest Footprints Outside Africa

English mud captures an ancestral stroll

Debate Flares over Identity of Celebrated Human Fossils

CALGARY--In 2010 paleoanthropologists announced to great fanfare that they had recovered from a South African cave two partial skeletons of a previously unknown member of the human family that lived nearly two million years ago...

Hunting Was a Driving Force in Human Evolution

How Hunting Made Us Human

For decades anthropologists have debated when and how our ancestors became skilled hunters. Recent discoveries have yielded surprising new insights

500-Pound "Chicken from Hell" Dinosaur Once Roamed North America

It stood 11.5-feet tall and tipped the scales at perhaps 500 pounds, with the body of a raptor, the head of a chicken and the crest of a cassowary; it sported big sharp claws and, probably, feathers...

New Evidence Suggests That Neandertals Buried Their Dead

In their treatment of the dead, Neandertals were a lot like us

Feds Crush Six Tons of Ivory to Save Elephants

Why the U.S. destroyed a multimillion-dollar stockpile of illegal ivory

Human Footprints Discovered on Englands Coast Are Oldest Outside Africa

  Archaeologists working on the eastern coast of England have found a series of footprints that were made by human ancestors sometime between 780,000 and one million years ago.

Virtual Chicken Experiments Solve Mystery of Why Roosters Have Wattles

Sex with Neandertals Introduced Helpful and Harmful DNA into Modern Human Genome

Over the past few years a number of studies of ancient and contemporary genomes have reached the same stunning conclusion: early human species interbred, and people today carry DNA from archaic humans, including the Neandertals, as a result of those interspecies trysts...

China Crushes Ivory, But Must Do More to Fight Wildlife Crime

In a development that has conservationists abuzz, Chinese officials crushed 6.1 tons of confiscated elephant ivory earlier today in a ceremony in Guangzhou.

The Most Fascinating Human Evolution Discoveries of 2013

Wow. Ive just spent the last couple days going through the paleoanthropology news that broke in 2013 and I must say it was a banner year. There were so many exciting new findings that bear on scientists understanding of just about every chapter of humanitys seven-million-year sagafrom our ancestors first upright steps to the peopling [...]..

Neandertal Grave Attests to Complex Cognition

Some 60,000 years ago, in a small limestone cave in central France, Neandertals dug a grave and laid an elderly member of their clan to rest.

Duck-billed Dinosaur Had Bizarre Rooster’s Comb, Mummy Find Reveals

Thanks to an ancient mummy, scientists now know that the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus regalis sported a snazzy ornament atop its head akin to a roosters red crest.

Can We Avert the End of Elephants?

Within the next 10 years, Africa could lose 100,000 elephantsa fifth of the populationto poachers if the slaughter for their ivory tusks continues at current rates, according to a new analysis...