acceleration

How human evolution has been speeding up

Providing some of the missing background for new research on natural selection from ancient DNA

Apr 20 • John Hawks

Did two pulses of evolution supercharge human cognition?

An intriguing new study tries to tabulate the ages of genetic variants associated with human phenotypes, but its claims about recent brain evolution may…

May 15, 2023 • John Hawks

Explaining the X chromosome hole in Neandertal ancestry

Natural selection reduced the variation on human X chromosomes in populations with the most Neandertal and Denisovan mixture. It may have been meiotic…

Mar 6, 2023 • John Hawks

Recent adaptive evolution to resist the toxic effects of arsenic

Examining a study by Carina Schlebusch and coworkers into the peoples of northern Argentina.

Mar 13, 2015 • John Hawks

David Attenborough says humans have stopped evolving. He's wrong

The famous documentarian has some strong views about the potential of our species, but he overlooks the diversity of environments we have created.

Sep 12, 2013 • John Hawks

Growing genetic data suggest a two-phase model for prehistoric population expansions in Africa

I describe results from two papers of African genetic variation, which show that the population growth from agriculture followed an earlier demographic…

May 23, 2011 • John Hawks

How much of human evolution was due to polygenic adaptation?

Selection on most human traits is likely to result in small shifts in frequency on many different genetic loci.

Sep 18, 2010 • John Hawks

Human evolution stopping? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I look into arguments by the geneticist Steve Jones that human evolution has stopped. It hasn't.

Oct 10, 2008 • John Hawks

Our new paper on why human evolution accelerated

I run through our 2007 work on evidence for recent natural selection across the human genome.

Dec 12, 2007 • John Hawks

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