Parasites drove human genetic variation: Adapting to pathogens was more important than climate and diet in driving natural selection.

Link: Parasites drove human genetic variation: Adapting to pathogens was more important than climate and diet in driving natural selection.

Modern humans began to spread out from Africa approximately 100,000 years ago. They settled in distant lands, where they had to adapt to unfamiliar climates, find different ways to feed themselves and fight off new pathogens. A study now suggests that it was the pathogens, particularly parasitic worms, that had the biggest role in driving natural selection — but that genetic adaptation to them may also have made humans more susceptible to autoimmune diseases.

Study finds cooking increases energy from meat, may have driven human evolution

Link: Study finds cooking increases energy from meat, may have driven human evolution

In a first-of-its kind study, Harvard researchers have shown that cooked meat provides more energy than raw meat, a finding that suggests humans are biologically adapted to take advantage of the benefits of cooking, and that cooking played a key role in driving the evolution of man from an ape-like creature into one more closely resembling modern humans.

Conducted by Rachel Carmody, a student in Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), the research also raises important questions about the way modern humans eat.