New research might change our answer to the question: what goal are plants and animals adapted to achieve? Natural history documentaries marvel at the design-like features of animals: perfect camouflage, stunning speed, incredibly ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 13, 2019
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51
Psychology, biology, and mathematics have come together to show that the occurrence of altruism and spite - helping or harming others at a cost to oneself - depends on similarity not just between two interacting individuals ...
Evolution
Apr 29, 2015
1
227
It isn't that often that a scientific controversy is featured in the New Yorker, but in 2012 an article titled "Kin and Kind" describing a tempest over a biological theory appeared in its pages.
Evolution
Mar 23, 2015
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51
Anyone who has ever loved a grandmother or grandfather knows the nurturing role that grandparents can play. A study of indigenous people in Amazonia, who survive on food they hunt, forage or cultivate, quantifies the evolutionary ...
Social Sciences
Feb 12, 2015
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342
For decades, researchers working to understand how altruistic behavior evolved have relied on a concept known as inclusive fitness, which holds that organisms receive an evolutionary benefit—and are able to pass on their ...
Mathematics
Jan 13, 2014
30
1
In 1964 biologist William Hamilton introduced Inclusive Fitness Theory to predict and explain phenomena ranging from animal behavior to patterns of gene expression. With its many successes, the theory became a cornerstone ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 25, 2011
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