Human

Artificial intelligence-powered speech synthesisers can now hold eerily realistic spoken conversations and clone the voices of others. Can we tell them apart from the human voice?

The brains of modern humans are around 13% smaller than those of Homo sapiens who lived 100,000 years ago. Exactly why is still puzzling researchers.

From hurricanes to deadly illnesses, humanity has a habit of personifying the things that threaten us. Why do we do it, and is it helpful?

The human genome was found to contain 20,000 protein-coding genes, which accounts for just 2% of our DNA. The rest of was written off as junk – but it plays a vital role.

The clocks are changing and the days are getting longer. Research suggests we might want to consider what this means for our bedtime.

Humanity's engineering achievements have been extraordinary, so why has building an artificial heart has proved to be more challenging than expected.

No human genome has ever been read in its entirety before. This year, scientists expect to pass that milestone for the first time.

BBC Future answers five key questions about China's recent population decline and what it might mean for global demographic trends.