Huge DNA Databases Reveal the Recent Evolution of Humans
The real clue is what scientists did <em>not </em>find.
When we talk about human evolution, we usually talk about how we evolved into humans: how we lost body hair, gained brain mass, started to walk on two feet—in short, things that happened millions of years ago.
But evolution did not stop when the first modern humans emerged. A new of two massive genetic databases—one in the United Kingdom and one in California—suggests genetic mutations that shorten lifespans have been weeded out since, and are possibly still in the process of being weeded out today.
