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Bats might have flown their way into healthier, longer lives

Bats have already set themselves apart from other mammals as the only members of our class to have mastered flight (sorry flying squirrel, that gliding crap doesn’t count). But the secret of flight has given bats some awesome perks. Relative to their size, bats live remarkably long lives. Rodents of similar stature typically live only … Continued

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These tiny mammals sing songs that hint at complex language skills

The rock hyrax doesn’t look like much, but it just joined an elite group of animals who display the rudiments of language. The lengthy songs these social mammals sing to each other show evidence of syntax and even regional dialects. Hyraxes are native to Africa and the Middle East, and a recent study of the … Continued

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How long would it take for a mouse to evolve into an elephant?

We’re used to mice being small and elephants being big, but there’s no reason they will stay that way forever. Elephants could become pipsqueaks and mice could get mammoth… and one of those will happen much faster than the other. Alistair Evans of Australia’s Monash University assembled a team of twenty biologists and paleontologists with … Continued

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Meet the 20,000 new species we discovered in a single year

The latest State of Observed Species report is out. And biologists might have just earned the title of Hardest-Working People in Science, discovering a staggering 19,232 species in just one year, including nearly 10,000 new types of insects. To put that in perspective, when Carl Linnaeus began his taxonomic organization of all known species in … Continued

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Your hibernation pod is ready

Imagine going to sleep for months at a time and then waking up just in time to land on Mars. Hibernation is second nature to bears and other mammals…but there’s no reason humans can’t do it too. Exactly how hibernation works and why only certain animals do it remain great mysteries for biologists, but the … Continued

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Your oldest relative is a shrew

Scientists have just published compelling evidence that your great (great great…) grandmother was a shrew. Or rather, a shrew-like creature. A team of researchers discovered a new fossil species that they’ve named Juramaia sinensis, or “the Jurassic mother from China” — a tiny, primitive mammal that dates all the way back to 160 million years … Continued

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Flying mammals are a big waste of energy

Bats are the only mammals that can technically fly, but a lot of other creatures do a pretty good impression of flight by gliding down from the tops of tall trees. But there’s a problem: this behavior makes no sense. Lots of small mammals have perfected the art of gliding, using folds of skin to … Continued

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Why does the naked mole rat live 3 decades longer than other rodents, and never get cancer?

The naked mole-rat lives for thirty years – compared to 1-2 years for other rodents – and we’ve never found any evidence that it can get cancer. Now we’re peeking inside its genome to figure out what makes it special. This particular rodent is the only known mammal species to possess negligible senescence, which means … Continued

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Lice are as old as the dinosaurs…and this could change everything

There’s a popular theory that bird and mammal evolution kicked into high gear after the dinosaurs went extinct. But now it turns out lice were already diversifying long before the dinosaurs died out. This is significant because lice would only start to diversify when their various hosts – in other words, birds and mammals – … Continued

Tech News

Why the Human Body Temperature Is 98.6 Degrees

Scientists have found the reason why our body temperature is 98.6° Fahrenheit (37°C). Apparently it’s the perfect balance, as it’s warm enough to prevent fungal infection but not so hot that we need to eat nonstop to maintain our metabolism. Scientists have always wondered why advanced mammals are so hot compared to other animals. And … Continued