Study finds that a gene for lighter skin spread rapidly among people in southern Africa in the last 2,000 years. University of California, Davis, researchers and colleagues report that the gene was introduced from eastern Africa to southern African populations. Strong positive selection caused this gene to rise in frequency among some KhoeSan populations.

The FOXP2 gene has been associated with uniquely human language abilities. But a UC Davis scientist and colleagues did a study with a wider variety of people and found no evidence of selection for FOXP2 in modern humans, challenging previous of how we think humans acquired language.