Small size seems to have come before a change in diet for a tiny dinosaur lineage. Alvarezsaurids were mostly small-bodied […]
Tag: evolution
A unicorn-like Spinosaurus found in the Sahara
But there was one thing that made S. mirabilis different from S. aegyptiacus. The word “mirabilis” in the newly discovered […]
Why are vertebrate eyes so different from those of other animals?
“We think that in this early deuterostome, the median eye contained both ciliary and rhabdomeric cells,” Kafetzis explains. As a […]
Neanderthals seemed to have a thing for modern human women
By now, it’s firmly established that modern humans and their Neanderthal relatives met and mated as our ancestors expanded out […]
Dinosaur eggshells can reveal the age of other fossils
Skip to content Like rocks, egg shells can trap isotopes, allowing us to use them to date samples. When dinosaur […]
From chickens to humans, animals think “bouba” sounds round
Does “bouba” sound round to you? How about “maluma”? Neither are real words, but we’ve known for decades that people […]
Tiny, 45 base long RNA can make copies of itself
Self-copying RNAs may have been a key stop along the pathway to life. By base pairing with themselves, RNAs can […]
Looking for friends, lobsters may stumble into an ecological trap
Skip to content Gathering for mutual defense puts young spiny lobsters at risk of predators. Lobsters are generally notable for […]
The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers
“Ants reduce per-worker investment in one of the most nutritionally expensive tissues for the good of the collective,” Matte explains. […]
Humans in southern Africa were an isolated population until recently
Collectively, the genetic variants in this population are outside the range of previously described human diversity. That’s despite the fact […]