Should we build a nature reserve on Mars?

There are 8 billion of us now. The UN says when the population peaks around the year 2100, there'll be 11 billion human souls. Our population growth is colliding with the natural world on a greater scale than ever, and we're ...

Eight billion people: How evolution made it happen

November 15, 2022, marks a milestone for our species, as the global population hits 8 billion. Just 70 years ago, within a human lifetime, there were only 2.5 billion of us. In AD1, fewer than one-third of a billion. So ...

Why plants worldwide became woody

Why do some plants grow into large woody shrubs or colossal trees, while others remain small and never produce wood in their stems? It's an evolutionary puzzle that baffled Charles Darwin more than 160 year ago. Now, scientists ...

The long and short of a supergene for efficient pollination

Scientists have solved the century-old mystery of a supergene that causes efficient cross-pollination in flowers. The results show that sequence length variation at the DNA level is important for the evolution of two forms ...

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