Giraffes surprise biologists yet again
New research from the University of Bristol has highlighted how little we know about giraffe behaviour and ecology.
May 18, 2018
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Will warm-water events in the Gulf of California reduce seabird populations?
Oceanic warm-water events in the Gulf of California have increased in frequency during the last three decades, passing from a historic mean of one or two warm anomalies per decade to five events in the 2007-2016 period. This ...
Genomics study in Africa—demographic history and deleterious mutations
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur set out to understand how the demographic changes associated with the Neolithic transition also influenced the efficacy of natural selection. By comparing the genome diversity of more ...
World-first genetic analysis reveals Aussie white shark numbers
Of all apex predators, the white shark Carchardon carcharias (commonly known as the great white) is perhaps the most fascinating. The potential danger from (very rare) human interaction has embedded the species in our national ...
Genome size affects whether plants become invasive
A University of Rhode Island scientist who studies the invasive plant Phragmites was part of an international research team that found that the most significant factor in determining whether a plant will become invasive is ...
Study shows treeshrews break evolutionary 'rules'
A new study has exposed the common treeshrew, a small and skittish mammal that inhabits the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, as an ecogeographical rule breaker.
Statistical test relates pathogen mutation to infectious disease progression
Nucleic acid sequencing methods, which determine the order of nucleotides in DNA fragments, are rapidly progressing. These processes yield large quantities of sequence data—some of which is dynamic—that helps researchers ...
Sumatran rhinos never recovered from losses during the Pleistocene, genome evidence shows
The Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is one of the most threatened mammals on earth. By 2011, only about 200 of the rhinos were thought to remain living in the wild. Now, an international team of researchers ...
Violence a matter of scale, not quantity, researchers show
Anthropologists have debated for decades whether humans living in tribal communities thousands of years ago were more or less violent than societies today. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame wonder if the question ...
Is the Earth over-populated?
In 1800 the world's population was around 1 billion people. Since then it has increased more than sevenfold to reach over 7.5 billion in 2017 (see figure 1), and is forecast to top 10 billion by 2050. Will population growth ...
