EvolutionJune 25, 2024
To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything
Nutrition influencers claim we should eat meat-heavy diets like our ancestors did. But our ancestors didn’t actually eat that way
Stories by Kate Wong
Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor at Scientific American focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for more than 25 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, to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, to the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and on a "Big Day" race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Kate 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 Wong on X (formerly Twitter) @katewong
AnimalsApril 25, 2024
We Are in the Golden Age of Bird-Watching
There has never been a better time to be or become a birder
AnimalsOctober 4, 2023
Cats Are Perfect. An Evolutionary Biologist Explains Why
Cats have attained evolutionary perfection
AnimalsJuly 5, 2023
This Seabird Courtship Ritual Is the Romance of the Summer
An adorable seabird courtship ritual shows the meaning of love: fish
AnthropologyJune 5, 2023
This Small-Brained Human Species May Have Buried Its Dead, Controlled Fire and Made Art
Extraordinary claims about the small-brained human relative Homo naledi challenge prevailing view of cognitive evolution
AnimalsApril 1, 2023
No One Knows How the Biggest Animals on Earth—Baleen Whales—Find Their Food
How do giant filter-feeding whales find their tiny prey? The answer could be key to saving endangered species
AnimalsOctober 1, 2021
Extreme Birding Competition Is a Cutthroat Test of Skill, Strategy and Endurance
A team of birders races to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours
BiologyMay 10, 2021
Brood X Cicadas Are Emerging at Last
The Great Eastern Brood has been underground for 17 years. Here’s what the insects have been up to down there
EvolutionApril 1, 2021
The Mysteries of Neandertal Art
Video produced in partnership with The Great Courses. All Great Courses video content is available only to subscribers with the password sent via email.
AnimalsMarch 1, 2021
What Scientists Have Learned from 100 Years of Bird Banding
A rich archive of data has illuminated the secret lives of birds
EvolutionFebruary 17, 2021
Mammoth Genomes Shatter Record for Oldest DNA Sequences
Researchers extracted DNA from fossils that are more than a million years old, illuminating the origins of the woolly mammoth and the Columbian mammoth
EvolutionFebruary 11, 2021
Neandertalized ‘Mini Brains’ Yield Clues to Modern Human Uniqueness
Experiments on clusters of cultured cells hint that a gene variant found only in Homo sapiens profoundly changed brain development in our species, compared with our extinct relatives
PolicyOctober 30, 2020
Seven Ways the Election Will Shape the Future of Science, Health and the Environment
Climate change, nuclear arms control, the pandemic and more will be determined by whoever wins the White House and Congress
EvolutionSeptember 1, 2020
How Scientists Discovered the Staggering Complexity of Human Evolution
Darwin would be delighted by the story his successors have revealed
EvolutionAugust 24, 2020
How Birds Evolved Their Incredible Diversity
An analysis of 391 skulls shows that birds evolved surprisingly slowly, compared with their dinosaur forerunners
EvolutionApril 9, 2020
Stone Age String Strengthens Case for Neandertal Smarts
Our extinct cousins had fiber technology. Stop calling them dumb already
CultureMarch 1, 2020
Is This Indonesian Cave Painting the Earliest Portrayal of a Mythical Story?
Archaeologists have dated figurative rock art from Sulawesi to at least 43,900 years ago
EvolutionDecember 12, 2019
Is This Indonesian Cave Painting the Earliest Portrayal of a Mythical Story?
Archaeologists have dated the image to at least 43,900 years ago, but their interpretation has met with doubt
EvolutionDecember 1, 2019
The Face of the Earliest Human Ancestor, Revealed
A long-sought fossil could redraw our family tree
EvolutionNovember 1, 2019
Solving the Mystery of Songbird Diversity
A strange chromosome may have provided fodder for the evolution of new traits
OpinionOctober 7, 2019
The Complexity of Napoleon Chagnon, Anthropology’s Lightning Rod
Unpublished excerpts from a 2000 interview capture one of the most controversial figures in modern science
BehaviorSeptember 1, 2019
Truth, Lies & Uncertainty
Searching for reality in unreal times
EvolutionApril 11, 2019
Philippine Fossils Add Surprising New Species to Human Family Tree
The second tiny ancestor found in the islands of southeast Asia, Homo luzonensis challenges prevailing views of early human dispersal and adaptability
EvolutionFebruary 15, 2019
Is This the Footprint of One of the Last Neandertals?
The fossilized print, found in Gibraltar, is said to date to 28,000 years ago, which might mean it belonged to a Neandertal. But not everyone agrees with that interpretation