john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Quote of the day

Mon, 2007-07-02 12:00 -- John Hawks

Jim Laidler, quoted in a Slate article about vaccines and autism:

History tells us that a lot of ground-breaking discoveries are made by mavericks who don't follow the mainstream. What is often left out is that most of the mavericks are just plain wrong. They laughed at Galileo and Edison, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown and Don Knotts.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.