Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution

A series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa roughly 2 million years ago may be responsible for driving human evolution, according to researchers at Penn State and Rutgers University.

Tiny limbs and long bodies: Coordinating lizard locomotion

Snakes and lizards have distinct body movement patterns. Lizards bend from side to side as they retract their legs to walk or run. Snakes, on the other hand, slither and undulate, like a wave that travels down the body. However, ...

Biologists find what colors a butterfly's world

As butterflies flit among flowers, they don't all view blossoms the same way. In a phenomenon called sexually dimorphic vision, females of some butterfly species perceive ultraviolet color while the males see light and dark. ...

Ant executions serve a higher purpose, research shows

Natural selection can be an agonizingly long process. Some organisms have a way of taking matters into their own hands, or—in the case of the ant species Cerapachys biroi—mandibles.

DNA extracted in museum samples can reveal genetic secrets

DNA in preserved museum specimens can allow scientists to explore the history of species and humanities impact on the ecosystem, but samples are typically preserved in formaldehyde which can damage DNA and make very difficult ...

Big crab claws for bling or bang?

Male fiddler crabs tread an evolutionary fine line between growing an enlarged claw better for signalling to females or one better for fighting finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. ...

Physicists use AI to find the most complex protein knots so far

The question of how the chemical composition of a protein—the amino acid sequence—determines its 3D structure has been one of the biggest challenges in biophysics for more than half a century. This knowledge about the ...

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