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A study published in Science Advances on April 1 reveals a new hypothesis that may explain why European cave bears went extinct during past climate change periods. The research was motivated by controversy in the scientific ...
Evolution
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Taking the evolutionary plunge into water and abandoning land for good, as some crocodilian ancestors did nearly 200 million years ago, is often framed as choosing freedom: from gravity, from territorial boundaries, from ...
Evolution
Mar 31, 2020
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The idea of a complex spider society—in which thousands of spiders live, hunt, and raise their young together in a single colony—is unsettling to many of us. We are perhaps lucky then that this scene is relatively rare ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 31, 2020
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Sometimes referred to as the "the Methuselah of freshwater fish," sturgeons and their close relatives are very old from an evolutionary point of view. Fossils indicate that sturgeons date back 250 million years and have changed ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 30, 2020
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While they can't pick out precise numbers, animals can comprehend that more is, well, more. From birds to bees and wolves to frogs, animals use numbers to hunt, find a mate, return to their home, and more—and researchers ...
Evolution
Mar 30, 2020
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A study by the Human Evolutionary Biology Group at the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country provides clues about the prevalence of a certain genetic profile in the European population.
Evolution
Mar 30, 2020
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An international team of scientists led by assistant professor Bart Pollux from Wageningen University & Research has showed that predators are driving the evolution of more complex placentas. They studied populations of the ...
Evolution
Mar 30, 2020
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For many people, the most distressing part of the coronavirus pandemic is the idea of social isolation. If we get ill, we quarantine ourselves for the protection of others. But even among the healthy, loneliness may be setting ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 26, 2020
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Mistakes are rarely rewarded. Intuitively, one would imagine that a shoddy typist at an office who keeps generating typos would either quickly lose their job, or at least be overlooked for promotion. The idea that this person ...
Evolution
Mar 26, 2020
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It is estimated that every year, over 100,000 human deaths can be attributed to snakebite from the world's 700 venomous snake species—all inflicted in self-defense when the snakes feel threatened by encroaching humans. ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 25, 2020
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A new study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests that birds have two alternative strategies for coping with the difficulties of humanity's increasingly chaotic cities—either by having large brains or through more ...
Evolution
Mar 25, 2020
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Men are more prone to competitive risk taking and violent behavior, so what happens when the number of men is greater than the number of women in a population?
Evolution
Mar 24, 2020
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The former coalfield of Geiseltal in eastern Germany has yielded large numbers of exceptionally preserved fossil animals, giving palaeontologists a unique window into the evolution of mammals 47 million years ago. At that ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 24, 2020
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Any old fish can swim. But what fish can walk, scoot, clamber over rocks, change color or pattern and even fight? That would be the frogfish.
Plants & Animals
Mar 24, 2020
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Many frogs look like a water balloon with legs, but don't be fooled. Beneath slick skin, some species sport spines, spikes and other skeletal secrets.
Evolution
Mar 23, 2020
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Given the fundamental biological differences in plants and animals, previous research proposed that plants may have broader environmental tolerances than animals, but are more sensitive to climate. However, a recent study ...
Evolution
Mar 23, 2020
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The current pace of climate change exceeds historical events by 1-2 orders of magnitude, which will make it hard for organisms and ecosystems to adapt. For a long time, it has been assumed that adaptation was only possible ...
Evolution
Mar 20, 2020
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The one thing about species that most people probably remember from high school science class is that when it comes to sex, they generally stick to their own kind. Hybrids happen, but they are usually thought to be accidental, ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 20, 2020
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A new study has provided the most comprehensive analysis of human genetic diversity to date, after the sequencing of 929 human genomes by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge and their ...
Evolution
Mar 19, 2020
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It isn't easy being a loner—someone who resists the pull of the crowd, who marches to their own drummer.
Plants & Animals
Mar 19, 2020
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