Human
Humans (Homo sapiens) are primates of the family Hominidae, and the only extant species of the genus Homo. They originated in Africa, where they reached anatomical modernity about 200,000 years ago and began to exhibit full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.
The human lineage diverged from the last common ancestor with its closest living relative, the chimpanzee, some five million years ago, evolving into the Australopithecines and eventually the genus Homo. The first Homo species to move out of Africa was Homo erectus, the African variety of which, together with Homo heidelbergensis, is considered to be the immediate ancestor of modern humans. Homo sapiens proceeded to colonize the continents, arriving in Eurasia 125,000-60,000 years ago, Australia around 40,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii, Easter Island, Madagascar, and New Zealand between the years AD 300 and 1280.
As early as 12,000 years ago, humans began to practice sedentary agriculture, domesticating plants and animals which allowed for the growth of civilization. Humans subsequently established various forms of government, religion, and culture around the world, unifying people within a region and leading to the development of states and empires. The rapid advancement of scientific and medical understanding in the 19th and 20th centuries led to the development of fuel-driven technologies and improved health, causing the human population to rise exponentially. With individuals widespread in every continent except Antarctica, humans are a cosmopolitan species, and by 2012, their population was estimated to be around 7 billion.
Humans are characterized by having a large brain relative to body size, with a particularly well developed neocortex, prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes, making them capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, problem solving and culture through social learning. This mental capability, combined with an adaptation to bipedal locomotion that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other living species on Earth. Humans are the only extant species known to build fires and cook their food, as well as the only known species to clothe themselves and create and use numerous other technologies and arts. The study of humans is the scientific discipline of anthropology.
Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of symbolic communication such as language for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to states. Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society. Humans are noted for their desire to understand and influence their environment, seeking to explain and manipulate phenomena through science, philosophy, mythology, and religion.
Read more about Human: Etymology and Definition, Habitat and Population, Psychology, Culture
Other articles related to "human, humans":
... and sexuality See also Theology of the Body The Catholic Church affirms the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death ... The Church believes the human being has been created in the "image and likeness of God", and that human life should not be weighed against other values ... made, and, behold, it was very good." then the human body and sex must likewise be good ...
... Three forms of superoxide dismutase are present in humans, in all other mammals, and most chordates ... SOD1, soluble Crystallographic structure of the human SOD1 enzyme (rainbow colored N-terminus = blue, C-terminus = red) complexed with copper (blue-green. 21 q22.1 SOD2, mitochondrial Structure of the active site of human superoxide dismutase 2 ...
... from people's sexuality in society and in human interactions ... reproduction are fundamental elements in human interaction and society worldwide ... one of the universals of culture peculiar to all human societies ...
... The date of the first human presence in Ivory Coast (also officially called Côte d'Ivoire) has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well ... and fishing) in the country has been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC), or at the minimum, the Neolithic period ...
... are very high-pitched, well outside the range of human hearing ... illustrates Henri Laborit's theories on evolutionary psychology and human behaviors by using short sequences in the storyline showing lab rat experiments ... In Harry Turtledove's science fiction novel Homeward Bound, humans unintentionally introduce rats to the ecology at the home world of an alien race which previously invaded Earth and ...
Famous quotes containing the word human:
“Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
—John Simon (b. 1925)
“May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that “faith” is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)