Evolution
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Does a 'recycled' brain region let us read?
New study adds weight to an evolutionary hypothesis.
The ability to read sets humans apart from other species, but we’re not completely sure how the brain developed the a...
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Humans have more time so have sharper skills
Longer childhoods and larger brains help finetune things.
Humans develop manual dexterity skills after a cumulative sequence of steps that also take place in other primates, a...
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Tracing the evolution of vertebrate teeth
Imaging technology suggests a very early start.
The evolutionary roots of teeth and dermal jawbones (cheekbones), the precursor to vertebrate jaws as we know them to...
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Did landscapes make land animals smart?
Navigating survival could have created bigger brains.
When it comes to superpowers, humans have dreamed up everything from super strength and X-ray vision to body morphing...
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How to be a fish out of water
Blennies reveal trials and tribulations of adaptation.
Animals have evolved some incredible adaptations to survive, especially those that moved from water to land – but the...
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Hurricane coming? Get bigger toepads
Study suggests lizards evolve to hang on.
Lizard groups that frequently experience hurricanes evolve larger toepads than those that don’t, according to a new s...
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Worms programmed to die early
It appears to be all for the sake of the colony.
Here’s one for the evolutionary theorists. British researchers say they have found worms that are genetically pred...
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Animal ancestor primera
Earliest ancestor of all modern animals identified.
The ancient stone at Nilpena fossil site, about 600 kilometres north of Adelaide, South Australia, has yielded some o...
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How human hands evolved from fish fins
Ancient fish fossil could provide ‘missing link’.
A complete Elpistostege watsoni fish fossil found in Miguasha, Canada, has shed new light on how vertebrate hands cou...
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‘Wonderchicken’ fossil from dinosaur age
Find sheds light on the origin of modern birds.
Palaeontologists have found the oldest fossil of a modern bird, originating from before the last mass extinction that...
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If lower limbs aren't used, get rid of them
Researchers describe earliest example of ‘secondary loss’.
Scientists say they have discovered the earliest known example of an animal evolving to lose body parts it no longer ...
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Untangling branches in the mammal tree of life
Research allows comparisons among distantly related lineages.
A new approach to the mammalian tree of life allows comparison between mammals as distantly related as a platypus and...