Evolution
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We have evolved to communicate
There’s a reason we look so different to our near relatives.
The need to develop social skills helped shape the modern human face, scientists have suggested. Writing in the jour...
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In primates, evolution is a ball game
Looking handsome comes at a very personal cost.
Evolution is fundamentally an exercise in trade-offs – speed versus bulk, running versus tree-climbing, that sort of ...
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Mass extinction and “morphospace”
The slow return to diversity is fuelled by tensions.
Theory tells us that after a mass extinction, an event where the diversity of species is drastically reduced, nature ...
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Lizard produces eggs and live young
Vertebrate observed spreading its reproductive options.
Versatility, it is generally acknowledged, is a useful evolutionary trait, but an Australian lizard, the three-toed s...
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Water beetles mate to an evolutionary standstill
Adaptations to male harassment result in speciation barrier.
A species of diving beetle is having mating problems, and that’s of interest to more than just diving beetles. Grapo...
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Amoebas diversified earlier than thought
Study challenges standard view on ancient diversity.
Amoebas diversified at least 750 million years ago, far earlier than previously thought, researchers have revealed. ...
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A year in the life of a giant sloth
A fossillised tooth reveals the secrets of a single animal.
A massive fossilised tooth from central America has opened a window into life for a giant ground sloth that lived 27,...
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Crocodiles have evolved more than we think
Research pinpoints three shifts from terrestrial to aquatic.
If you’ve ever looked at a crocodile and felt like you were looking at a window to the Jurassic Period, you aren’t al...
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Weird worms challenge complexity argument
New classification sheds light on evolution of simplification.
Looking like a character from a gothic fantasy, a chaetognath. Credit: Creative Commons Japanese scientists have ...
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History
Lynn Margulis, contrarian to the end
Scientist revolutionised evolutionary theory.
Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis has variously been regarded as a revolutionary and an eccentric. The web encyclo...
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Vertebrate evolution kicked off in lagoons
First animals with backbones traced to shallow “hot-spots”.
Scientists have discovered that shallow, lagoon-like environments were the cradle for vertebrate evolution, giving ri...
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How Nemo got his stripes
Clownfish variation reflects evolutionary pressures.
Coral reef fish display all sorts of patterns and colours. One of the most recognisable is that of the clownfish – a ...