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165 articles
Were these extinct animals related to horses, donkeys, or zebras, or were they something else entirely? Using ancient DNA, we have finally solved this mystery.
Wolf spiders that build webs produce silks that perform differently than those that do not build webs, supporting hypotheses that web building and silk...
Scientists have solved the mystery of how wombats make cube-shaped poops - and the answer is not a square butt-hole! A new study reveals that muscle...
Sexual behaviors often have a deep impact on social interactions. Here is how female fruit flies cope with it.
The recent discovery of a complete 375 million-year-old fossil from eastern Canada, Elpistostege watsoni, clarifies our understanding of the origin of digits...
Is your train moving or the one outside of your window-train? A tiny fish like zebrafish would be able to tell the difference in the blink of a...fin!
New "ancient-DNA" research sheds light on the networks that existed across the whole of Europe and northern Africa 5000 years ago. What motivated these...
History books tell us about how ancient populations developed to be the modern world that we are living in. Ancient DNA can provide us with a broader picture...
Domestic rabbits are much more fearless than wild rabbits. This study shows that tameness in domestic rabbits is associated with changes in brain regions that...
Species on Earth are interconnected to each other through ecological interactions. Human activities can erode those connections, leading to the loss of...
Glass frogs are well known for their transparent belly skin that gives them a unique translucent appearance. We asked how being translucent, rather than...
Does specializing on particular resources restrict an organism’s ability to adapt to changing environments and increase its chances of extinction? Species...
Wheather or not we are alone in the Universe, we probably haven't been alone on Earth for a long while. Homo naledi might have been more than a simple neighbor...
Humans dispersal into northern Africa is thought to be happened later than 2.6 million years ago. However, we discovered two archaeological deposits estimated...
Instead of looking at visual maps, homing pigeons smell the environmental air to know their way home. Yet, how they achieve this spectacular feat remains...
Viruses, once thought specific to managed honey bees, have now been detected in wild bee species, including bumble bees. Our study tested whether virus...
This study traces some of the earliest evidence for cannabis smoking back to ancient burials in the high mountains of the Pamirs in far western China. People...
Quick breakage of lizard tails to escape predation has remained a mystery for centuries. Our study explains the balance between firm attachment and the quick...
Flying is hard. To achieve such an endeavor, bird digestion must be super-efficient, with many of them regurgitating pellets like owls. The flying dromaeosaur...
What makes dogs so uniquely friendly? Scientists have studied the unique relationship between humans and domestic dogs for decades, but the role of genetics in...
Think about prehistoric food. Images of chunks of roasted meat may appear before your inner eye, maybe also of coarse flatbread, porridge, a slice of cheese,...
Neanderthals once inhabited Eurasia, but the geographical origin and time of arrival of the easternmost populations in southern Siberia remain open questions....
More than dinosaurs lived in North America during the Cretaceous, including a very small freshwater shark. The new species, named Galagadon, is a relative of...
The elephant trunk functions as a muscular hydrostat: it can achieve elaborate movements without the support of any bone. Elephants have evolved unique...
Yellow spotted salamanders are generous hosts to their stressed out green algal guests.
A new fossil giraffid species has been discovered in Madrid, shedding light on how this iconic family evolved.
Tiny mammals lived amongst the dinosaurs for over 100 million years; probably often trying not to be stepped on or eaten by the giant beasts. What did these...
Ancient wild cats likely decided to move to our house thousands of years ago, but how this unique evolutionary adaptation happened remains unknown. Our study...
Scientists rarely consider species’ behavioral diversity as a significant contributor to wildlife biodiversity. Challenging this view, we find that both...
Analysis of the CoV-19 genome reveals two crucial mutations responsible for its efficient capacity to infect humans. There are two possible scenarios of how...
The story our furry companions comes from long time time ago. How did they spread all over the world?
Animals with no limbs (like snakes) are expected to have a disadvantage when handling their food. Although most snakes swallow their prey whole, we found that...
Our excavation at Chiquihuite Cave in Zacatecas, Mexico, produced evidence that humans arrived to the Americas as early as 32,000 year ago, doubling the...
Cooperation relies on shared communication systems, such as language. We can now add one of the planet’s most cooperative rodents, the naked mole-rat, to the...
Classical genetics dictates that chromosomal DNA stores all the heritable information. However, the DNA sequence is not the only piece of information that one...
Rats have notably long whiskers. We wondered how one can best describe the shape of those whiskers. Our extensive analysis of 523 whiskers led us to conclude...
Denisova Cave is an archaeological site in southern Siberia. Russian archaeologists have excavated it for over 30 years. It is the only site in the world we...
Capable of an outstanding panel of sounds, whales have developed an acute sense of hearing to take advantage of this fine way of communicating underwater....
Why do most plants and animals reproduce sexually? The Red Queen hypothesis suggests that sex provides an advantage for hosts living with parasites. This...
