The Story of Us: Humanity's 7-Million-Year Journey

 
... In this special edition of Scientific American, we explore the evolution of those characteristics that make us human—from our upright stance to our peerless ability to collaborate. Our tale has three chapters. The first examines our tangled family tree and the factors that favored the survival of our branch to the exclusion of others. The second takes stock of how humans differ from other primates—from hairless skin to unmatched creativity to widespread monogamy—and considers how these features may have set us up to thrive. The third ponders the future of human evolution in a world brimming with technological fixes for everything from loneliness to disease. [...] Scientific American