john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

This magic moment

Sat, 2008-05-10 00:19 -- John Hawks

Today, the projected population of the Earth (available here) passed 6,666,666,666.

Around 9 years ago, I tried to put into the first sentence of a paper that the world's population was 6 billion. A reviewer wouldn't let me get away with rounding up, noting that "It's not 6 billion yet!"

Of course, by the time the paper was published, the sentence was true.

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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.