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This fish may be humanity’s one connection with our sea-dwelling past

Lungfish are a peculiar type of fish that can survive for an extended period on land. Using their pectoral fins to propel themselves, they can gulp air and live for some time out of the water — and they’re the sole surviving creature that could explain how we evolved to leave the oceans. The ancestors … Continued

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Meet the ancestor of all living things on Earth

The Last Universal Common Ancestor is the great-grandparent of everything that has ever lived on Earth. Scientists had long assumed it was a crude, simple thing, more a chemical mishmash than anything else. But our earliest ancestor holds some surprises. Known as LUCA for short, it’s hard to even know how to describe this…thing. For … Continued

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Should We Clone Endangered Species?

Science writer Emma Marris recently wrote an excellent post over at Last Word On Nothing that explores some of the ethical and technical implications of cloning extinct (and near-extinct) species. Her piece challenges us to re-evaluate our conceptions of conservation, and provides a thought-provoking look at how saving animals from the brink of extinction (let … Continued

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How fruit flies control their own immune systems with a song

Humans aren’t the only animals that have to guard against potential infection during sex. Fruit flies are at greatly increased risk of infection during their mating season, which is why the male’s mating call actually boosts the female’s immune system. Researchers at the University of St. Andrews played recordings of male mating calls for a … Continued

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Baboons are capable of understanding analogies

The ability to form analogies, to look at two unrelated situations and recognize the basic similarities that bind them together, was thought to be a uniquely human trait, with some experts speculating that language is a prerequisite for understanding them. Well, for what feels like the thousandth time this year, it turns out that our … Continued

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Tracking the evolution of the human brain

How did our remarkable brains come to be, and what will they become? These are the questions that David Robson addresses in this excellent feature on the evolution of the human brain, published in the latest issue of New Scientist. Robson’s piece comprises information gleaned from some of the latest scientific research to trace the … Continued

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Computer model reveals what would happen if humans became immortal

At first glance, the fact that we grow old and die seems like one massive evolutionary mistake. After all, if evolution is all about survival of the fittest, wouldn’t the fittest individuals be those that can stay healthy and keep reproducing forever? That’s a bit of a simplification – and no, evolution isn’t all about … Continued

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Promiscuity evolved to fight back against inbreeding

From a strictly evolutionary perspective, there’s no reason why female beetles should be promiscuous. Unlike males, taking on multiple partners won’t allow females to spread their genes more widely, and too much sex can actual shorten the female beetle lifespan. But according to research from the UK’s University of East Anglia, there may be a … Continued

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Carnotaurus had the most ridiculously weak dinosaur arms ever

The image of the hulking T. rex and its comically undersized arms is deeply ingrained in pop culture, but it isn’t really fair. They were muscular little appendages well-suited to their evolutionary purpose. The wimpy-armed Carnotaurus is another story entirely. As you can see in the skeleton up top, Carnotaurus had arms that even T. … Continued

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Female Promiscuity Is a Biological Imperative

Men have always had evolution to blame for their wily Cassanova ways—that whole spreading their seed far and wide thing. Finally, evolution is coming through for women, too! Female promiscuity is common in chimpanzees, chickens, salmon, sea urchins and obviously humans. But no one ever found an evolutionary benefit to it. (Although they had found … Continued

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This beetle larva tricks its predator into becoming prey

The predator-prey relationship between frogs and beetles seems like it would be pretty obvious doesn’t it? Frog spots beetle, frog stealthily approaches beetle, frog eats beetle. Done, done and done. But it turns out that the relationship between amphibians (like frogs and toads) and the larvae of ground beetles is one of nature’s rare examples … Continued

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An alternate history where evolutionary theory never evolved

Designer and futurist Thomas Thwaites recently posed an interesting question. What would life be like in a world where evolutionary science never took hold, but humanity was nevertheless as scientifically developed as we are today? In a series of stories and art projects, he tries to answer that question — and explains why, in this … Continued

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Birds from the Cretaceous period went out the same way as the dinosaurs — with a bang

For years, paleontologists have disagreed over whether birds from the Cretaceous period went out with a whimper — dying out gradually over the course of millions of years — or with a bang — getting wiped out by the same mass extinction event that is believed to have killed off Earth’s most recent (and final) … Continued

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Oldest known DNA fragment is over a billion years old

There’s one tiny fragment of DNA that pretty much all vertebrates and invertebrates share. It’s the only piece of DNA known to be a billion years old — and it still has a role to play in shaping our genes. Researchers at the University of Barcelona discovered the fragment, which is a noncoding sequence of … Continued

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Mollusks evolved brains on four different occasions

As far as invertebrates go, you don’t get much smarter than the members of the mollusk phylum, which includes octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid. But mollusks apparently didn’t think through their evolutionary path very well, developing brains four times over. That’s the finding of researchers at Auburn University. Kevin Kocot and his team examined the genetic … Continued

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Neanderthals were eating brain-expanding shellfish 150,000 years ago

Shellfish has a surprisingly important place in our evolutionary story. One theory says shellfish fueled the expansion of our brains, while another gives it credit for saving our species. Turns out Neanderthals liked shellfish just as much as we did. Shellfish are a plentiful source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for higher brain … Continued

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We’ve discovered a new species of dolphin, and it’s probably already endangered

Characterizing a new animal species can be a tricky process, but in dolphins it can be especially difficult. Now, scientists in Melbourne, Australia have managed to formally classify what will be just the fourth formal description of a new dolphin species in over 100 years. The new species, classified as Tursiops australis (pictured up top), … Continued

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Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber

Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who’ve suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you … Continued

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What Does Evolutionary Biology Have to Do With Christmas in Binghamton?

David Sloan Wilson decided that Darwin’s evolution would never be taken seriously until it affected the world in a real and tangible way. In The Neighborhood Project he employs all the powers of biology, sociology, religion and economics to improve his hometown of Binghamton, New York. We decided to mount an even more ambitious effort … Continued

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Are giant jellyfish evolving to take over the seas?

With fish numbers all over the world falling thanks to overfishing and habitat destruction, a surprising predator has sprung up to take their place — the jellyfish. Due to their low energy requirements, the floating blobs of stingers don’t need to be quite as active or accurate to spread and fill the ecological niche afforded … Continued