It is a very challenging position that @NeilShubin walks into as leader of @theNASciences with partisan division over many areas of scientific work. Illuminating interview with @carlzimmer as he takes office. nytimes.com/2026/06/12/scien…

That was demoralizing for reviewers - and bleak for the science landscape. An enormous amount of time and effort is devoted to unproductive grant-writing. (11/10)

Almost every time we look at the DNA from ancient creatures, we find signs that their evolution involved surprising mixtures. New work on cave lions finds they’re not as different as long thought. johnhawks.net/p/the-ancient-…

Next week Sunday May 24, I'll be in Kraków, Poland at the 2026 Copernicus Festival. I'll be talking about "A new history of Homo sapiens", deep time Africa and the intricate history of mixture underlying humanity's origin. Free and open to the public! copernicusfestival.com/event…

I feel a little heretical in saying that the headlines may say Homo erectus, but the Denisovan connection is pointing me a different direction. The connections over time within China are an old topic, and protein data has made them resurface again. johnhawks.net/p/rethinking-h…

Really neat writeup by @Carolynyjohnson of the new work showing that a Neanderthal from Chagyrskaya Cave, Russia, sat for a dental drilling almost 60,000 years ago. washingtonpost.com/science/2…

Even proposition whether the AI version or real life is more cursed

“Few archaeological sites have undergone such geological contortions. Its sediments may have formed in even, flat layers, but in a million-plus years the falling center of the Jordan Rift upended them, so that some tilt upwards almost vertically.” johnhawks.net/p/a-new-age-fo…

A remarkable sequence of artifacts in layers upended by the Jordan Rift represent some of the oldest hominins in Eurasia. With a new estimate around 1.9 million years, the Acheulean artifacts from ‘Ubeidiya approach the earliest known in Africa. johnhawks.net/p/a-new-age-fo…

Lots of interest in recent natural selection over the last week, with the new work from Ali Akbari and coworkers supporting the idea of pervasive selection on ancient genomes. A great step forward based on a foundation of work over more than 20 years. johnhawks.net/p/how-human-ev…

I’ve done two episodes with @johnhawks and both are excellent. If you’re interested in human evolution, you should check them out and follow Dr. Hawks, who writes frequently about the latest paleoanthropology research. Fun fact: I took a couple of courses with John back in college, which really sparked my interest in human evolution.

The National Science Foundation has proposed eliminating the directorate that includes most of the federal funding for fieldwork and research in human origins. It's a sudden acceleration of a decades-long trend. I comment on what this means. johnhawks.net/p/us-federal-s…

This photo has a very personal meaning for me if you care to read it. I saw a photo from @johnkrausphotos on reddit nearly a decade ago of the engines on a Falcon Heavy launch. I was working at a tough sales job at the time. The shot inspired me to learn more about space and spaceflight. Shortly after, I bought my first telescope. I saw Jupiter, Saturn, and Nebulae, and started social media accounts where I shared my amateur photos. Then I was laid off, and Covid happened. Moved from Sacramento to Arizona for clearer skies, cheaper cost of living, and a chance to go all-in on space photography. My audience started to grow. Then, NASA contacted me, asking me if they could use some of my moon photos for something called Artemis. I said yes. During the Artemis I rollout my DMs blew up “Andrew- your photo is on the Mobile Launch Platform!”. Now I knew that astrophotography wasn’t enough… I should probably pay attention to spaceflight. I spent a lot coming out to the first launch attempt, which would be my first rocket launch if it flew. Sadly, it was a scrub. I came home from Florida, sharing my stories of touring the VAB and facilities with my grandfather, who worked on Apollo. He passed shortly after, which affected my ability to return to watch the SLS flew. Feeling bummed out, I focused back on my deep sky work, but then I started hearing about something called “Starship”. I caught a video from @Erdayastronaut where a rocket ship fell through the air belly-first and flipped upright and landed. Inspired, I knew I had to witness one of these machines fly, so I flew to Starbase the moment I could afford it, which was for the second fully integrated flight test. The moment Starship lifted off the pad, I was hooked. There was nothing quite like the experience. I did everything I could to catch every launch I could, and worked to become credentialed media to get better access. Last year I flew from Arizona to Florida & Texas over a dozen times specifically to sharpen my launch photography skills with our first human spaceflight to the moon in over 50 years looming. A decade of preparation for a split second moment. When I picked up my camera from the launch pad yesterday morning and peeked at what was captured, I knew it was all worth it. Thank you, NASA, Artemis, and the all people who inspired me along the way. This is still only the beginning.

Monthly median Received to Accepted time (days) at Nature Genetics

I took some time to wonder at the beautiful newly-described handaxes and other artifacts from near Sakhnin, Israel, where Acheulean artisans used geodes and fossil-bearing nodules for knapping. johnhawks.net/p/ancient-hand…

Burial of the dead is one of the few ways that people’s skeletons can tell us directly about their cultures. When very different kinds of people share similar burial practices, it raises the possibility of cultural exchanges between them. johnhawks.net/p/tinshemet-ca…

La Roche-Cotard is a remarkable cave site used by Neanderthals before 51,000 years ago and then closed. Inside are enigmatic parallel lines, geometric patterns, and ochre dots. Outside, a strange stone resembling a human face was unearthed. johnhawks.net/p/looking-into…

A new preprint from the geneticist David Reich focuses on the interactions of Neanderthal and African ancestral humans 250,000 years ago. Many parts I wholly agree with, but the key idea about Levallois technology is out of step with today's data. johnhawks.net/p/did-levalloi…

Early Neanderthals walked into this cave, went three football fields into the earth, created 15-foot-wide bubbles of rock, lit and tended small fires upon them. Then they left. A unique find with implications for how we underestimate many past peoples. johnhawks.net/p/a-look-at-th…

I'm pretty excited about a new study of the African influence on Neanderthal X chromosomes. It's because a pattern of dispersal of early modern people based on matrilineal kin networks makes a lot of sense. johnhawks.net/p/matrilineal-…