Tag

evolution

close up of a paper wasp's stinger against a black background

Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Animals, plants, and even some bacteria use hypodermic needles

Needles are everywhere in nature, evolving independently many times in a variety of organisms

Hayden Waller

How survival of the fittest can look a lot like rock-paper-scissors

Sometimes ancestors are more "fit" than their progeny

Sree Rama Chaitanya

Zebrafish without "love hormone" neurons show no desire to socialize with each other

New research shows the importance of oxytocin for social affiliation and isolation

Kareem Clark

Wild Goffin's cockatoos can use tools, too

Scientists have observed captive cockatoos making tools before, but this is the first documented instance of tool use in wild cockatoos

Fernanda Ruiz Fadel
a black male jumping spider peering over some leaves

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

Female jumping spiders favor the most aggressive males

A new study provides evidence for sexual selection in these spiders

Hayden Waller
close up of glowing yellow bacteria against a dark blue and brown background

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Bacteria can live without food for over 1000 days

Nearly three years without food drives innovative survival strategies

Simon Spichak

Rijksmuseum, Netherlands 

Has evolution changed? Asking experts how Darwin's theories hold up in modern science

"Reading Darwin even today, one is struck by how effortlessly he 'filled the blanks'"

Rita Ponce

Thomas Lipke / Unsplash

Ocean mammals keep cancer at bay with tumor suppressing genes

Studying how whales and dolphins can evade cancer could help us suppress it in humans

Hazel Walker

cocoparisienne / Pixabay

Extinction risks in a rapidly warming planet depend on previous slow temperature swings

Considering "climate memory" changes the risk calculation as much as an organism's geographic range or abundance

Sophia Friesen

T. Chapman in PLoS Biology 2008. 

Fruit flies have more sex when predatory wasps come around

This weird predator-prey interaction appears to be reliant on one gene in particular

Rujuta Vaidya

Ponz-Segrelles, Aguado & Glasby

This worm has too many butts

Researchers have identified how its internal anatomy adapts as its butts branch off

Simon Spichak
A close up of a longhorn beetle's face

A close up of a longhorn beetle's face

Rare orchid lures in beetle pollinators using deceitful sexual bait

Longhorn beetles deposit sperm in orchids they pollinate, but why?

Sahana Sitaraman

Neandertals don't deserve their bad, dim-witted reputation

Our hominin ancestor had bigger brains and probably went extinct with climate change. Who are we to judge?

Brittany Kenyon-Flatt

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Pets harbor different microbes from their wild relatives

Swapping the diets of wild and domesticated animals could only explain some of the microbial differences

Bhargavi Murthy

Joyce McCown on Unsplash  

Denisovans left their DNA traces in humans, but their fossils remain elusive

New study digs into ancestries of people in Island Southeast Asia

Amanda Rossillo
test tubes with green, blue, and orange liquid in them

Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash  

Scientists starved E. coli for 1200 days to learn about bacterial evolution

They saw two main lineages emerge and compete with each other — all in a single test tube

Madeline Barron
a woman's hand holding a vial of vaccine against a sky backdrop

Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz on Unsplash 

Immunocompromised people must be a priority in the COVID-19 vaccination effort

Vaccinating immunocompromised people will both protect their health and slow viral evolution

Francesco Zangari
Hypholoma fasciculare, or the sulfur tuft mushroom

Alan Rockefeller via Mushroom Observer

Produced in partnership with NPR Scicommers

Fungi create genes to "win over" their plant friends and neighbors

The vast majority of plants depend on fungi for life, and fungi are always learning how to best befriend plants

Attabey Rodriguez Benitez
Hannah Thomasy