An international collaborative research group consisting of members from 7 institutions has developed a method of determining which amphibious species (types of frog, newt and salamander) inhabit an area.
Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) is seen as evidence for self-awareness and passing the mark test, in which animals touch or scrape a mark placed on their body in a location that can only be indirectly viewed in a mirror, is used to determine the capacity of an animal for MSR.
Why have some plant species changed pollinators in their evolution? An international team of researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Suzhou (China) studied the reproductive systems of three sister species pairs, where one species is pollinated by insects and the other by hummingbirds.
Approximately 80 miles from the westernmost reach of China’s Great Wall, paleontologists found relics of an even more ancient world. Over the last two decades, teams of researchers unearthed more than 100 specimens of fossil birds that lived approximately 120 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and in Japan have used an ancient fish to reel in new insights about human biology and, in particular, how and why a widely used medication works to abort pregnancies (in people, not fish).
Cornell College students who enjoy field research and enjoy understanding the biology of endangered species now have an option to specialize in coursework on those topics and select the new ecology and evolutionary biology major.
Eyespots, the circular markings of contrasting colours found on the wings of many butterfly species, are used by these fluttering creatures to intimidate or distract predators. A team of scientists led by Professor Antónia Monteiro from the National University of Singapore (NUS) conducted a research study to better understand the evolutionary origins of these eyespots, and they discovered that eyespots appear to have derived from the recruitment of a complex network of genes that was already operating in the body of the butterflies to build antennae, legs, and even wings.
Inspired by the tsetse fly, scientists have developed a theory about how an individual’s age and experience affect investment in their offspring. Parents face a trade-off between putting resources into their offspring versus using resources to enhance their chances of survival so they can have more offspring. The best allocation of resources depends on age. More experienced parents are better at getting food, so they can pass on more to their offspring. However, resources are needed to combat ‘wear and tear’, so in old age less can be passed on.
New research involving researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology, published today in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, explores the phenomenon of societal extinction.
One population of female common yellowthroats prefers males with larger black masks, but another group of females favors a larger yellow bib. A new study has found that both kinds of ornaments are linked to superior genes.
Here are some of the latest articles we've posted in the Physical Science channel.
Some 30 years of archeological and other types of scientific research around the ancient artifacts and human remains in the Grotte Mandrin, located in the Rhone River Valley in southern France, has revealed that humans may have arrived in Europe about 10,000 years earlier than originally thought.
A set of Triassic archosaur fossils, excavated in the 1960s in Tanzania, have been formally recognised as a distinct species, representing one of the earliest-known members of the crocodile evolutionary lineage.
Proteins on the surface of cells act as sentries — and microbes hoping to invade will evolve tricks to evade these front-line defenses. But the host cell’s proteins don’t sit back helplessly. They, too, can evolve in ways that makes it harder for microbes to get through.
Giant mountain ranges at least as high as the Himalayas and stretching up to 8,000 kilometres across entire supercontinents played a crucial role in the evolution of early life on Earth, according to a new study by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).
A new study, led by researchers from Bar-Ilan University, Ono Academic College, The University of Tulsa, and the Israel Antiquities Authority, presents a 1.5 million-year-old human vertebra discovered in Israel's Jordan Valley.
By comparing chromosomes of different animal groups scientists at the University of Vienna led by Oleg Simakov and at the University of California made an astonishing discovery: Every animal species has almost the same chromosomal units that appear over and over again - and this has been the case since the first animals emerged about 600 million years ago. Using new principles, human chromosomes can now also be dissected into these primordial "elements". The new study has just been published in the journal Science Advances.
A new study from Cornell University finds that fish are far more likely to communicate with sound than generally thought.
The importance of meat eating in human evolution is being challenged by a new study from a team of five paleoanthropologists that includes the University at Albany’s John Rowan.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calls into question the primacy of meat eating in early human evolution.
Addressing one of the most profoundly unanswered questions in biology, a Rutgers-led team has discovered the structures of proteins that may be responsible for the origins of life in the primordial soup of ancient Earth.
Florida State University researchers have new insight into the complicated puzzle of environmental conditions that characterized the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME), which killed about 85% of the species in the ocean.
A team of researchers has identified a gene that determines whether ultraviolet iridescence shows up in the wings of butterflies. In a new study, the team showed that removing the gene in butterflies whose wings lack UV coloration leads to bright patches of UV iridescence in their wings. According to the researchers, the gene plays a critical role in the evolutionary process by which species become distinct from one another.
The OneZoom explorer – available at onezoom.org – maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species known to science.
Researchers have discovered the genetic basis for a quirk of the animal kingdom — how ant queens produce broods that are entirely male or female.
The last common ancestor of chimps, gorillas and humans developed an increased resistance toward cobra venom, according to University of Queensland-led research.
Million years of evolution have produced a dazzling variety of species, each uniquely adapted to its environment.
A little-known species of tropical bee has evolved an extra tooth for biting flesh and a gut that more closely resembles that of vultures rather than other bees.
Scientists now understand how certain animals can feed on picturesque, orange monarch butterflies, which are filled from head to abdomen with milkweed plant toxins.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have identified the huge impact of flowering plants on the evolution of life on Earth.
A compilation of over 1,700 contemporary book reviews of Charles Darwin’s works, in 16 languages and spanning the years 1835 to the early 20th century was launched online. The collection of book reviews has been added to Darwin Online, a comprehensive scholarly website on Darwin. This new resource gives a comprehensive picture of the diversity in responses to Darwin’s work.
New research shows that humans had a significant role in the extinction of woolly mammoths in Eurasia, occurring thousands of years later than previously thought.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have found that fast evolution can lead to nowhere.
Scientists from UChicago and Spain use CRISPR to show how genes that control growth at the end of fish fins play the same role in fingers and toes.
When listening closely, the melodies of human languages and animal vocalizations are very similar. However, it is not yet fully resolved if similar patterns in languages and animal vocalizations also have similar meanings. Researchers of the University of Vienna present a new method to decode the meaning of animal vocalizations: the comparison of their melodies with human languages.
An international team of researchers, led by Professor Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits University) has revealed the first partial skull of a Homo naledi child that was found in the remote depths of the Rising Star cave in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Songbirds share the human sense of rhythm, but it is a rare trait in non-human mammals.
NYU researchers at the Tandon School of Engineering and the Grossman School of Medicine are trying to understand an age-old question that bedeviled most of us at some point: Why do all the other animals have tails, but not me?
The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. Now, a new study has brought us closer to understanding some of its evolution.
Discovery provides new insights into the evolution of crabs and when they spread around the world.
Ancient DNA (aDNA) research enables scientists to uncover more information than ever on past peoples. But this wide availability of aDNA brings ethical questions to the forefront. Now a team of more than 60 scholars have created a set of ethical guidelines regarding aDNA as a way to govern such research.
Sudden burst of evolution 66 million years ago expanded snake diets and put vertebrates on the menu.
When an asteroid struck 66 million years ago and wiped out dinosaurs not related to birds and three-quarters of life on Earth, early ancestors of primates and marsupials were among the only tree-dwelling (arboreal) mammals that survived, according to a new study.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine report new evidence that some 5,000 years ago, a sloth smaller than a black bear roamed the forest floor of what is now the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea, living a lowland life different from its cousins on the other side of the island.
Islands are hot spots of evolutionary adaptation that can also advantage species returning to the mainland, according to a study published the week of Oct. 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Islands are well known locations of adaptive radiation, where species diversify to fill empty niches.
Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative.
University of Kentucky College of Medicine researchers were part of a new study that gives insight into how limb development evolved in vertebrates.
Can dragonflies migrate thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean, from India via the Maldives to Africa, and back again? An international research team led by Lund University in Sweden has used models and simulations to find out if the hypothesis could be true.
“Throw me the idol; I’ll throw you the whip!” - From Raiders of the Lost Ark
Chuck Stewart, an expert in the ecological applications of computer vision, is part of the newly created Imageomics Institute, founded with a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation to use images of living organisms to understand biological processes.
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