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Evolution & Behaviour

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Elpistostege: a fish with legs or a tetrapod with fins?

Around 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle asserted that our hand is the "tool of tools." Our hands and fingers help us to work, to create, to communicate. But when did these anatomical structures appear in our distant ancestors? For the past 530 million years... click to read more

  • Richard Cloutier | Professor at Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada
  • John A. Long | Strategic Professor at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
  • Alice M. Clement | Researcher at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Views 13339
Reading time 4 min
published on Dec 16, 2020
Beetles became an evolutionary success with help from stolen microbial genes

There are more than 400,000 known beetle species - and perhaps one million more species left to discover. This makes beetles one of the most diverse groups of animals on Earth. However, the causes for their extraordinary diversity are widely debated. Many claim that herbivory... click to read more

  • Duane D. McKenna | Professor at Department of Biological Sciences and Center for Biodiversity Research, University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Views 5247
Reading time 3 min
published on Dec 2, 2020
Snakes in Decline: Not as Good as You May Think

Snakes are incredibly crucial in each ecosystem to which they are native, despite the fact humans often dislike them. Additionally, when conducting community-level studies, snakes can serve as a conservation model for more secretive or rare animals, like some birds and mammals. In the past couple... click to read more

  • Julie M. Ray | Researcher at La MICA Biological Station, El Copé de La Pintada, Coclé, Republic of Panama
  • Graziella V. DiRenzo | Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Department of Integrative Biology; Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824; Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101, USA.
Views 5685
Reading time 3.5 min
published on Nov 2, 2020
Distinctive stone tools reveal Siberian Neanderthals originated in eastern Europe

Fossils of Neanderthals were first discovered in western Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Since then, the behaviours and activities of our closest evolutionary cousins, the regions of the world that they inhabited, and their evolutionary history have been the subject of much scientific enquiry and... click to read more

  • Kseniya Kolobova | Research scientist at Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
  • Maciej Krajcarz | Associate Professor at Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland
  • Richard "Bert" Roberts | Professor at Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong, Australia
Views 7350
Reading time 3.5 min
published on Oct 26, 2020
Repurposing of retroviral genes: when foe becomes self

The genomes of all organisms are constantly under attack from a variety of sources, including the everyday effects of solar and ionising radiation together with chemical and oxidative insults. However, there are also more specific threats to our genomes like those that posed through invasion... click to read more

  • Ian A. Taylor | Senior Group Leader at The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
  • Jonathan P. Stoye | Senior Group Leader at The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
Views 4066
Reading time 3.5 min
published on Oct 23, 2020