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Independent MP William Wilberforce wrote the Slave Trade Act in 1807 which abolished the industry across the British Empire. It was enacted in 1833 The transatlantic slave trade was launched by Portuguese traders with the construction of sub-Saharan Africa’s first permanent slave trading post at Elmina in 1492. But it soon passed into Dutch then … Read more
How apes ‘talked’ 40m years ago: Our primate ancestors developed capacity for language, scientists say Arrival of Homo Sapiens was believed to be when language started taking shape New research suggests our ancient ancestors developed capacity for language Researchers at universities of Warwick and Zurich examined how chimpanzees, monkeys and humans processed tones in a … Read more
DNA – deoxyribonucleic acid – is widely known as the molecule found in the nucleus of all our cells that contains genetic information. It is shaped like a double-helix and made of small sections called nucleotides. Each nucleotide contains a nucleobase, a sugar, and a phosphate group. The sugar component in this particular molecule is … Read more
David Walliams has said he was relieved to learn he didn’t have any ‘horrible’ ancestors while filming Who Do You Think You Are? The comedian-turned-children’s author compared his experience to that of fellow TV star Jack Whitehall, who appeared on the BBC series last year. ‘I’m glad there weren’t any “baddies” in my family, because … Read more
Jodie Whittaker has revealed some of the things she discovered about her ancestors in Who Do You Think You Are? went against ‘everything [she] believes in’. The actress, 38, grew up in a mining village in Yorkshire and discovers on the programme that her great-grandfather was a strike breaker in the 1920s. Speaking to Radio … Read more
Fire was used to make tools by our early human ancestors some 300,000 years ago, an analysis of flint blades unearthed in a cave east of Tel Aviv has revealed. Researchers from Israel studied stone blades, flakes and pot-lids from the Qesem cave — and discovered evidence that they had been exposed to controlled fires. Exposing … Read more
One of the earliest human ancestors – that lived 400 million years ago – was a ‘fish’ with no jaw that used spines on its head to shift position in the water, study claims. Researchers from the University of Bristol used computer simulations to create ‘avatars’ of our ancient relatives to explore how they moved … Read more
Early human ancestors may have boiled their food in hot springs 1.8 million years ago — long before they learnt to use fire as a controlled source for cooking, study suggests By Ian Randall For Mailonline Published: 12:19 BST, 16 September 2020 | Updated: 12:19 BST, 16 September 2020 Hot springs may have been used … Read more
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the fifth of six children of wealthy and well-connected parents. One of his grandfathers was Erasmus Darwin, a doctor whose book ‘Zoonomia’ had set out a radical and highly controversial idea, that one species could ‘transmute’ into another. Transmutation is what evolution was then … Read more
Hand axe made from a hippopotamus femur discovered in Ethiopia was used by early ancestors 1.4 MILLION years ago Archaeologists unearthed an ancient hand axe used by Homo erectus The tool dates back 1.4 million years and was found in Ethiopia in Africa This hand axe is unique, as it was constructed from a hippopotamus femur … Read more