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Evolutionary Biology
A common weed uses uncommon types of photosynthesis.
Nietzsche both wished he was as stupid as a cow so he wouldn’t have to contemplate existence, and pitied cows for being so stupid that they couldn’t contemplate existence.
The 557-million-year-old specimen challenges the theory that animal body plans were laid out in the Cambrian explosion.
Human beings are descendants of these early tetrapods – at least those who made a new life on land.
While becoming a monk is an evolutionary dead end for the individual, celibacy reaps benefits for the group as a whole.
Let's hope that squid don't evolve lungs and legs, or humanity might be in real trouble.
Evolutionary psychology could explain those otherworldly feelings.
A second Enlightenment would have a far bigger task: Saving civilization itself.
Turning off a gene called “Myc” has a surprising effect in male fruit flies: They start courting other males.
More humans are being born with a third arm artery, an example of microevolution happening right before our eyes.
Mammals have a history stretching back 325 million years. To study that ancient history is to know our own origins.
Predatory dinosaurs with big skulls tend to have tiny arms. Researchers propose there might be a direct link between those traits.
New research finds that dinosaurs were already adapted to living in cold climates before the end-Triassic mass extinction. But how?
Genetic analysis reveals that a specimen collected in 2019 is the same subspecies as one caught more than a century earlier.
Fossils of Australopithecus in a South African cave are one million years older than previously thought. This challenges the consensus that humans first evolved in East Africa.
More than 90% of human faces are home to mites that live in our skin pores. These friendly guests might be merging with us.
The biology behind your office's air conditioning war.
There’s an enormous evolutionary advantage for flamingos to stand on one leg, but genetics doesn't help. Only physics explains why.
Yorkicystis lived during the “Cambrian explosion,” 539 million to 485 million years ago – hundreds of million years before the dinosaurs.
All marbled crayfish descended from a single clone discovered in Heidelberg, Germany in 1995.
It's not about leaves in tall trees.
The long-standing debate over whether dinosaurs were more like birds or lizards is drawing to a close.
We already know animals feel emotions, and that they can understand humans' emotions. But can they understand each other's emotions?
What if intelligence can thrive without consciousness?
The spooky world of quantum mechanics might reach out and touch you — by mutating your DNA. Welcome to the weird world of quantum biology.
Researchers have discovered 830-million-year-old microbes living inside a salt rock on Earth. Could the same occur on Mars?
Some astrobiologists believe life is rare, while others believe it is common in the Universe. How can we find out which view is correct?