A new study is the first-ever to identify the genes for creativity in Homo sapiens that distinguish modern humans from chimpanzees and Neanderthals. The research identified 267 genes that are found only in modern humans and ...
Evolution
Apr 21, 2021
1
151
A new study verifies the age and origin of one of the oldest specimens of Homo erectus—a very successful early human who roamed the world for nearly 2 million years. In doing so, the researchers also found two new specimens ...
Evolution
Apr 13, 2021
1
1095
Paleontologists have discovered two new species of mammal-like, burrowing animals that lived about 120 million years ago in what is now northeastern China. The new species, described today in the journal Nature, are distantly ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 7, 2021
1
5797
A new study shows that the similarly smooth, nearly hairless skin of whales and hippopotamuses evolved independently. The work suggests that their last common ancestor was likely a land-dwelling mammal, uprooting current ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 1, 2021
0
294
For the first time, scientists have documented biofluorescence in an Arctic fish species. The study, led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History who spent hours in the icy waters off of Greenland where the ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 18, 2021
0
4
New research suggests that the ability of green algae to eat bacteria is likely much more widespread than previously thought, a finding that could be crucial to environmental and climate science. The work, led by scientists ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 2, 2021
0
5
A group of scientists led by the American Museum of Natural History and Bat Conservation International have discovered a new species of a striking orange and black bat in a mountain range in West Africa. The species, which ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 13, 2021
0
362
Researchers have discovered a new "hidden" gene in SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—that may have contributed to its unique biology and pandemic potential. In a virus that only has about 15 genes in total, knowing ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 10, 2020
0
1048
A new study describes a bioluminescent gene that could be the reason that so-called 'sea pickles,' or pyrosomes, an underwater free-floating colony of thousands of tiny animals, reverberate in blue-green light. If confirmed, ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 20, 2020
0
54
Closed-canopy rainforests are a vital part of the Earth's modern ecosystems, but tropical plants don't preserve well in the fossil record so it is difficult to tell how long these habitats have existed and where rainforests ...
Archaeology
Oct 6, 2020
0
36
