A fall in vital trace elements in our oceans could be one of the driving forces behind a number of mass extinction events during Earth’s history.
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Articles on Evolution
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Is a woman’s longing for a child evolution at work, or social conditioning? And what about those who don’t want kids? Are they defying nature? Probably not, as almost everyone wants sex.
Social organisation plays a key role in the wide variation seen in the size of male howler monkey calls and the size of their testes.
With humans providing lots of easy leftover food, wolves had a great incentive to ‘self-domesticate’.
Evolution also does not claim humans evolved from primates. Neither does it say non-human primates, including monkeys, baboons, chimpanzees and gorillas, will evolve into humans with time.
It is one of the most controversial questions in nature. Now a group of British researchers have shed light on the answer.
Many animals, including humans, form long-term partnerships, but some are same-sex, suggesting they’re not all about raising offspring but some other form of cooperation.
Beyond the cool factor of figuring out hominin hearing capacities two million years ago, these findings could help answer the tantalizing question of when did human vocalized language first emerge.
Missing links make a good story, but not good science. Outdated metaphors don’t help us understand the rapid evolution of infectious diseases such as flu and malaria.
The molecular clock is helping us deepen our knowledge of evolution and completing the tree of life. But how does it actually work?
The middle part of our vision sees in a much higher resolution than at the peripheries. But that’s just the beginning …
Turns out pigs have more boar in them than we thought.
There are a number of reasons why zebra’s stripes are useful to a zebra. The key question is: could some of them benefit society?
By filming these ultra-speedy feeders at transparent fake flowers, researchers finally figured out how hummingbirds slurp up the nectar so fast.
The fossilized plant Montsechia relied on water to disseminate its genetic material and may rewrite the book on when and how the first flowering plants evolved.
Darwin’s insights into life on Earth may have revolutionised biology, but scientists sometimes get carried away. It’s not the only game in town.
We have evolved a tendency to find people with wider faces to be more threatening. But appearances can be deceving.
The rise and fall of the essential elements for life could have influenced the way life evolved over many millions of years.
The peppered moth will always hold a special place in the annals of evolutionary biology. Its story is a classic example of natural selection, and of how animals can act as indicators of environmental change.
The science about our special senses - vision, smell, hearing and taste - offers fascinating and unique perspectives on our evolution. Yet it remains patchy; we know surprisingly little for example about…
Top contributors
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Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW's Grand Challenges Program, UNSW Sydney
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences at the University of Bath, University of Bath
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Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath
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Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Monash University
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Adjunct Research Associate, Monash University
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Jenny Graves is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University
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Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University
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Mark Elgar is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Evolutionary Biology, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Natural Sciences, UCL
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Senior lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, University of Bristol
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Evolutionary Ecology, Griffith University
