From New Scientist, was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock? Early hominid first walked on 2 legs in the woods. Ancient skeleton could rewrite the book on human origins: This introduction has been a long time coming — some 4.4 million years ago, a hominid now known as Ardipithecus ramidus lived in what were then forests in Ethiopia (and more from the Discovery Channel). Anthropologist John Hawks explains why Ardi, the oldest known skeleton of a human-like primate, matters so much to the science of human origins (and more from Scientific American). My Ardi, myself: Lionel Tiger on looking for what we want to see in a new human ancestor. Originally promoted as the stem of the primate family tree, it now appears that Darwinius masillae — better known as “Ida,” the fossil that “changes everything” — belonged to a fringe branch (and more and more). From Science, a look at how Homo sapiens lost its diversity. Human intelligence and complex behaviour are far older than suspected, yet our ancestors almost didn't make it — how did we overcome a tenuous African existence to populate the world? Modern man a wimp, says anthropologist Peter McAllister, author of Manthropology: The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male. The Snake Detection Theory posits a fascinating relationship between serpents and primates: A review of The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well by Lynne A. Isbell. A review of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human by Richard Wrangham (and more).