The physics behind a water bear's lumbering gait

Plump and ponderous, tardigrades earned the nickname "water bears" when scientists first observed the 0.02-inch-long animals' distinctive lumbering gaits in the 18th century. Their dumpy plod, however, raises the question ...

Alligator study reveals insight into dinosaur hearing

To determine where a sound is coming from, animal brains analyze the minute difference in time it takes a sound to reach each ear—a cue known as interaural time difference. What happens to the cue once the signals get to ...

Human hand more primitive than chimp's, study says

Strong fists for defending ourselves and opposable thumbs for work as fine as threading a needle—hand specialisation is widely believed to have given humans a major evolutionary advantage.

Placental mammal diversity exploded after age of dinosaurs

An international team of researchers has reconstructed the common ancestor of placental mammals—an extremely diverse group including animals ranging from rodents to whales to humans—using the world's largest dataset of ...

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