Raccoon dogs aren't raccoons, and they aren't dogs either. These distinctive canids became symbols of luck and prosperity in 16th-century Japan, but they've been around a lot longer than that. Here are five facts you should know about them. | National Geographic

It's long been believed that modern humans followed a relatively straight path of evolutionary progress. But discoveries of new bone fragments and fossils around the world, alongside breakthroughs in DNA analysis, reveal a much more complex picture. Paleontologists now believe that early Homo sapiens shared the Earth and mated with a surprising variety of previously unknown human species. In this timelapse, paleoartist John Gurche meticulously constructs a model of a recently discovered hominin—