A Mother’s Age and Diet Influences Offspring Health – Shown in Research on Tropical Flies
The female tsetse fly, which gives birth to adult-sized live young, produce weaker offspring as they get older, and when they feed on poor quality…
Evolution
Why Is the Eastern Monarch Butterfly Disappearing? Is There Something We Can Do About It?
A Spartan-led research team has uncovered an answer — at least for the most recent population decline — with a huge assist from volunteers. Michigan…
How Spiders Can Distinguish Living From Non-Living Objects in Their Peripheral Vision
Ability to identify other animals from relative positioning of the joints not unique to vertebrates. Jumping spiders can distinguish living from non-living objects in their…
Arrival of Land Plants 400 Million Years Ago Changed Earth’s Climate Control System
The arrival of plants on land about 400 million years ago may have changed the way the Earth naturally regulates its own climate, according to…
Researchers Shocked to Discover Bacterial Parasites Behind Rise of “Superbugs”
For the first time ever, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered that phages — tiny viruses that attack bacteria — are…
After 14,000 Years of Domestication, Dogs Have Some of the Same Cognitive Abilities As Human Babies
You can snuggle wolf pups all you want, they still won’t ‘get’ you quite like your dog. You know your dog gets your gist when…
3.4 Billion-Year-Old Fossils of Methane-Cycling Microbes Expand Frontiers of Habitability on Early Earth
A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bologna, has discovered the fossilized remains of methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system…
Extraordinary Ability of Animals to Rapidly Evolve in Response to Predators Yields New Conservation Insights
The extraordinary ability of animals to rapidly evolve in response to predators has been demonstrated via genetic sequencing of a waterflea population across nearly two…
Answers to a Fundamental Puzzle: Why Are Some Fish Warm-Blooded When Most Are Not?
New research from marine biologists offers answers to a fundamental puzzle that had until now remained unsolved: why are some fish warm-blooded when most are…
200-Million-Year-Old Fossil Sheds Light on the Evolution of How Dinosaurs Breathed
An international team of scientists has used high-powered X-rays at the European Synchrotron, the ESRF, to show how an extinct South African 200-million-year-old dinosaur, Heterodontosaurus…
Unusual Dinosaurs Rapidly Shrank Down to the Size of Chickens As They Adopted a Remarkable New Diet
Dinosaurs were generally huge, but a new study of the unusual alvarezsaurs show that they reduced in size about 100 million years ago when they…
Newly Discovered Paleonursery Offers Rare, Detailed Glimpse at Life 518 Million Years Ago
Deposit contains exceptionally preserved fossils of soft-bodied, juvenile organisms from the Cambrian period. All life on Earth 500 million years ago lived in the oceans,…
Diversity of Tiny Bobtail Squid Driven by Major Ancient Biogeographic Events
Bobtail and bottletail squids are tiny marine invertebrates that are found throughout the world’s oceans and are useful model animals for research There are 68…
Male Dragonflies Lose Their “Bling” in Hotter Climates – May Make It Difficult to Find a Mate
Less pigmentation keeps them cool, but could make it difficult to find a mate. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
The Mysterious Chinese Mountain Cat Was Likely Not Involved in Feline Domestication
Genomic evidence for the Chinese mountain cat as a wildcat conspecific (Felis silvestris bieti) and its introgression to domestic cats. Analyses of genomic data suggest…
Ancient Diamonds Show Earth Was Primed for Life’s Explosion of Diversity at Least 2.7 Billion Years Ago
A unique study of ancient diamonds has shown that the basic chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere which makes it suitable for life’s explosion of…
Protein “Big Bang” Reveals Molecular Makeup for Medicine and Bioengineering Applications
Proteins have been quietly taking over our lives since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We’ve been living at the whim of the virus’s so-called “spike” protein,…
Reconstructing Climate Conditions During the Migration of Homo sapiens Out of Africa
Climate reconstruction of the last 200,000 years from East Africa illustrates the living conditions of Homo sapiens when they migrated out of Africa / Homo…