* Astronomy

How dark winters meant bigger human brains and eyeballs

Humans living at high latitude have bigger eyes and bigger brains to cope with poor light during long winters and cloudy days, say scientists from University of Oxford, UK.
But writing in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, they conclude that bigger brains do not make people smarter, as the extra capacity is taken up with larger vision processing areas.
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The human mutation rate

The first direct measurement of human mutation rates ever done, published in Nature Genetics, contains surprises which call molecular clock assumptions into question and prompt some re-thinking of our genetic understanding. Analysis of data from two families in the "1000 Genomes Project" database suggests that humans mutate much more slowly than predicted and in surprisingly unpredictable and inconsistent ways.
In each case, the genomes of one child and his/her parents were analysed. The first challenge was to determine which genomic differences represented mutations and then which of those were inherited. Only mutations in the parents' germ cells can be inherited. While about 1600 non-germline mutations were found, only 49 mutations were inherited by one child and only 35 by the other. Other studies confirmed an average of around 30 to 50 mutations passed on per child.
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Ancient cave women 'left childhood homes'

Analysis of early human-like populations in southern Africa suggests females left their childhood homes, while males stayed at home.
An international team examined tooth samples for metallic traces which can be linked to the geological areas in which individuals grew up.
The conclusion was that while most the males lived and died around the same river valley, the females moved on.
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Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?

Some geologists now believe that human activity has so irrevocably altered our planet that we have entered a new geological age. 
This proposed new epoch - dubbed the Anthropocene - is discussed at a major conference held at the Geological Society in London on Wednesday. Yet some experts say that defining this "human age" is much more than about understanding our place in history. Instead, our whole future may depend on it.

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