By performing a famous magic trick for three species of monkey with differing hand structures, scientists have discovered that—in order to deceive—a conjuror needs a similar anatomy to their audience.
Plants & Animals
Apr 4, 2023
0
396
When is a thumb not a thumb? When it's an elongated wrist bone of the giant panda used to grasp bamboo. Through its long evolutionary history, the panda's hand has never developed a truly opposable thumb and instead evolved ...
Evolution
Jun 30, 2022
0
1046
Corn split off from its closest relative teosinte, a wild Mexican grass, about 10,000 years ago thanks to the breeding efforts of early Mexican farmers. Today it's hard to tell that the two plants were ever close kin: Corn ...
Biotechnology
Sep 25, 2011
0
0
A new 160-million-year-old arboreal pterosaur species, dubbed 'Monkeydactyl', has the oldest true opposed thumb—a novel structure previously not known in pterosaurs.
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 12, 2021
0
200
Despite long-standing ideas about the importance of thumb evolution in tool use and development, questions remain about exactly when human-like manual dexterity and efficient thumb use arose—and which hominin species was ...
Evolution
Jan 28, 2021
2
145
Neanderthal thumbs were better adapted to holding tools in the same way that we hold a hammer, according to a paper published in Scientific Reports. The findings suggest that Neanderthals may have found precision grips—where ...
Archaeology
Nov 26, 2020
11
792
There's a reason why farmers wear protective gear when applying organophosphate pesticides. The substances are very effective at getting rid of unwanted bugs, but they can also make people sick. Related compounds—organophosphate ...
Engineering
Mar 22, 2017
0
140
The most complete ice age mastodon skeleton found in Michigan since the 1940s was recovered this month from the state's Thumb region by a University of Michigan-led team that included Tuscola County teachers who volunteered ...
Archaeology
Oct 18, 2016
0
106
The mystery of why so many plants on New Zealand's otherwise bleak subantarctic islands have very large deeply coloured flowers and giant leaves has been solved by new University of Otago research.
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2016
0
190
University of Utah engineers designed a new kind of video game controller that not only vibrates like existing devices, but pulls and stretches the thumb tips in different directions to simulate the tug of a fishing line, ...
Engineering
Mar 5, 2012
1
0
